crazy
pegkerr reminded janni in comments of a great old post Peg wrote on copyrediting and galleys, and how errors get into print.Everything she said, with the addition of -- this manuscript is six hundred and fifty six pages long. It represents probably something like three years of my life, and it's three years noncontiguous. The first draft was begin in 1991 or so. It's suffered major plot revisions, character unpersonings, repersonings, one POV thread eliminated, two POV threads added, exposition moved around, character names changed, dead people reanimated and live people killed off. People's physical appearances have changed. Carel used to be thinner and taller than she is now. Matthew wasa brunette, once upon a time. (He kept the brown eyes, somehow. Screw it; brown-eyed blonds are not unheard of, or, at least, a hazel dark enough to be called brown isn't.)
...and I've written... nine other novels in six other settings and four other continuities since I wrote this book. And I'm working on two other books in two more continuities/settings now.
I can't bloody remember what happens in which version of it, and what version is which and when, anymore. While I go over the CEM and galley, I have my manuscript open in Word do I can quick-search and figure out if a scene I remember writing is even still in the book anymore. And, you know, you cut one sentence or paragraph for length at the last minute, and introduce a cascading error across pages.
If this were easy, it wouldn't be fun. *g*
One more day to Narnia!
