The first-time excitement of copy edits

His Unexpected Family is my debut book so everything about having a book published is new to me. And I don’t mind telling you that I’m having an absolute ball with every step of the process.  It’s like being invited behind the wizard’s curtain to see what really goes on, and I feel like an eight-year-old at the circus. Fascinated, awed, and privileged.

I have a new appreciation for what else is involved… beyond the initial phase of simply writing a saleable book. For so long my focus has been on writing the best stories I possibly can, and submitting them to publishers in the hope they might want to acquire one. That part of the dream came true for me back in January, (and twice more in March)and since then that first manuscript has been re-titled, heated up, tightened up, the conflict and underlying themes clarified, and some clunky wording smoothed out.

Most recently my Aussie-isms have been weeded out, and I’ve concluded that there are some I’ll never anticipate no matter how many books I write. It has been loads of fun to see it take shape into an Indulgence (with terms and expressions you’d find in other Indulgences.) It doesn’t take much to make me giddy with excitement at this stage, but the slow-growing realisation that my book is about to be an actual Indulgence* from Entangled Publishing is enough to take giddy to a whole new level.

Less than a week to go! Squeeeeee!!!

~ Robyn

*I’ve known this for months, of course, but somehow it’s different and new and REAL all of a sudden!