I'm finishing my galleys for Catch Me in Castile.
Galleys are the proofs for a print book. The publisher asks the author to take one final read through and make any corrections before the book goes to print.
Gulp. There's something very final about the whole process as if my living breathing creation is now going to be set in stone.
F-O-R-E-V-E-R.
I wonder if the Evanovichs, Roberts, Rowlings, and Kings of the world all feel like throwing up each time they open their galleys?
Checking my nerves, I remind myself that this is the way things should go. My baby needs to go off into the world without me. It's as it should be. Perefectly right.
And so I check for typos, word choice, blantant errors, and author stupidity for the very...last...time. And press send.
8 comments:
I've only had 1 set of galleys, and they struck me with terror. I even had a bad dream in which the story gradually dissolved into complete, unintelligible nonsense.
After I got the last round of galleys back to my editor, she emailed to ask if there were really no problems in the last 40 pages. It scared the crap out of me! But I went over them again and I really couldn't find anything...
Thanks, Bryn. I'm glad I'm not the only one with Galley-illness.
It's almost as bad as the naked in public dreams I was having the week before my book was supposed to come out. Talk about feeling exposed. LOL.
I have Galley-illness too. Every time they arrive I feel intense panic and fear and will do anything I can to avoid looking at them. Of course I have to tackle them eventually, and when I do, it's not as terrible as I feared.
But I still get the same dreadful feelings every time a set arrive.
So hang on in there, I think there must be loads of writers who feel the same way as us! :)
I have galleys on my computer right now. I've gone through them once and only found a couple typos. So now, of course, I'm sure I must have missed something and so I'll have to go through them one more time. But not today...
Thank you Portia, Natasha and Bryn for stopping by. You helped to ease my mind (and the belly ache).
Good luck to you Natasha. I'm sure your book is great!
And thanks to Charlotte! She didn't post here, but did send me a comment.
Galleys always make me feel sick! I know I'm too close to the story and always worry that I'll miss stuff! I'm shuddering thinking about them *g*
Hi Katie,
I feel the same way--worried I'm going to miss something important (even though the book has been edited five times at least by people who know what they are doing and make a living doing it). Craziness! Good luck everyone who is working on galleys, avoiding galleys, or dreaming that they may one day have galleys to be sick over.
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