Thunder! Lightening! Copyedits!

I just received another round of copy edits from Algonquin. I've never worked with such a thorough--and really funny copy editor. She quipped about a coffee stain from where her cat knocked over her cup, she made sly asides over changes she suggested that had me laughing, and she suggested that my acknowledgement pages were getting to be book length and maybe I could consider paring them down. She has the kind of mind I don't--drawn to logic, honing in on every wrong turn I've made and pointing me to the right direction.

And boy, am I grateful.

Going through copy edits is nerve-wracking, because you really want everything to be perfect, and there is always the fear that you really screwed up and got something terribly wrong in the plot and you won't know how to fix it. I have to change the name of a town because if I use a real town, then I have to make everything in it right, and I'd rather fudge it and have fun with it. I had to do more research on everything from obstetrics to funeral parlors because the more real those facts are, the better.

So I'll be done by Wednesday, I think. Liberating! Freeing! I can work on my new novel! I can finish my script!

I can wait for page proofs.