Editor Love Day!

It's Editor Love Day! (in the vein of Agent Love Day last week)

Because editors need love too. Even if you don't have one, chances are many of you have had some interactions with them, business or casual. I've had interactions with several editors, and the coolest thing I've learned: THEY'RE PEOPLE. I know, crazy right?! Yes, for writers they are people with immense power, gatekeepers for one of the last doors an author has to get through. But they're actually kind of cool. They like certain music, they do things in what little spare time they have, etc.

Anyway, onto my editor: The Incredible Abby Ranger, of Disney-Hyperion. Or as I often call her, the second member of my A-Team (since Abby and Amy both start with A).

Now, I'm writing this post from an interesting place, inside the belly of the beast of edits. This isn't one of those situations where I can look back on it and glorify the experience. I'm IN it. Edits are hard.

My editor is hard. my editor is intense. She is an Editrix, and she has earned the term. But guys, let it be known, let me shout this even in my time of distress:

My editor is Brilliant (that's right I capitalized the B because that's how brilliant she is).

If I could show you my edits, they would be an exercise in red, and yet somehow I have NOT lost hope, and I've only spent a minimal amount of time in the fetal position on my office floor. Why is that? Because my editor has the strange power to make me think that *gasp* I can do this. She just gives me a call, talks through it with me, and suddenly my fears seem kind of small, suddenly the solution seems within my grasp (now the time after I've hung up when I turn back to my word doc might be a different story). Abby makes me feel like I can do this.

And even if Editor Abby is still busily nibbling on small (and not so small) bits of my soul, even during that, I still stop now and then and mutter to myself, "Damn she's good." I still can't believe I HAVE an editor, let alone one as incredible as Abby. The things she sees! The way she sees!

Edits are HARD. My editor is HARD. But she is also BRILLIANT (oh now I've gone and capitalize the whole thing!) and WONDERFUL, and SUPPORTIVE, and FRIENDLY. And she wants to help make NEAR WITCH the absolute best it can be :) She BELIEVES in me, and in this book, and that is an amazing feeling.

I have an editor. She might still scare the s*** out of me, but mostly I just adore her, and I adore what my book is becoming with her help.

Now, I'd better get back to my edits!