first pass page proofs

The typeset manuscript (or page proofs) for Fire Along the Sky arrived today. After all the hand wringing by various publishers about the length of this novel(the English editor being the loudest) it turns out to be exactly as long as Lake in the Clouds. About which nobody complained. So I’ve got 610 pages to proofread, and here are my instructions: “please read them carefully and return only those pages needing correction as soon as you can.”

This is a hurry up and wait business, no doubt about it.

The reason they feel it necessary to remind me to read them carefully is this: it does get old quite quickly, reading the same sentences again and again. Especially as I wrote them, and in the process, rewrote every single one of them someplace between three and ten times. That’s how I work, editing as I go along. However, the first pass page proofs aren’t so hard to concentrate on because everything looks very different once it’s typeset.

It’s from this set of proofs that the bound galleys will come. Don’t have a date on that yet, but I’ll advise when I do.