[I posted a photo tour of my workspace at the Deadline Dames today, so for more pictures and details, click here.]

Kaci's doing much better today. She's eating her prescription food and using her new litter box, so hopefully we can put this entire bladder infection issue behind us and get back to the usual routine. Which includes her ignoring me unless she wants food. Which, as you can see, she's getting plenty of. According to the vet, she weighs 14.5 lbs, which means she's gained two pounds this year. Somehow. Even though I measure her food carefully. I suspect she's been eating some of Nyx's food too.

Speaking of which, Nyx has discovered that Kaci's getting different food now, and she's trying to get in on the action. Which means I have to separate them while they eat, because Kaci's food is too acidic for Nyx's perfectly normal tummy.

How did I wind up with such high maintenance pets? I swear, they used to be the poster children for "Pets for Dummies." ;-)

My new recliner hasn't been delivered yet, but we moved the old one into my office anyway, so I could start working in there. I love it! I've never had an office before, and now I'm not sure how I ever managed without all my stuff so conveniently co-located. Here are a few pictures:
 

Okay, I'm off (though I'm not actually going anywhere) to work. Today I'm cutting a bunch of stuff that I no longer need, thanks to my newly re-ordered plot, then I'll be writing a new chapter. Hopefully. ALPHA is almost done!

I'm behind(er) on Alpha. Again. I spent half of yesterday at the vet with Kaci, the oldest of my two cats, because I suspected she had a bladder infection. After a couple of hours, an X-ray, a couple of shots, a subcutaneous fluid injection, a prescription for special food, and a hefty vet bill, I'm still not sure exactly what was wrong with her. The vet says her bladder has "gunk" in it (I saw said "gunk" on the X-ray) and that it has inflamed her bladder. And that if it went untreated, it would become bladder stones.

She now has prescription S/D food, which has the proper acidity to break down the "gunk" (minerals) in her bladder and prevent it from reforming. After a month, she can switch to the "C Diet" food, but can't go back to regular cat food. Ever. Or we risk more gunk, which she is evidently susceptible to. Just because.

So, she's been treated and released, and I got her a new litter box, hoping she'll be willing to use it (please, please, please!) because she doesn't associate it with painful urination. And it's not in the laundry room, so the dryer won't scare her. Hopefully.

So, after much cat drama, I am now in my office trying to work, but half the day is gone, and I'm feeling kind of (really) stressed. Also, I'm feeling like someone set the universal clock to FF and forgot to tell me. So many deadlines, so little time. So I might not have time for much blogging in the next couple of weeks. Though I tend to hang out on Twitter, because 140 characters don't take much time. ;-)

Writing Progress: ALPHA stands at 110,291 words, but the story isn't quite over, even though I can only add 10,000 more words. Fortunately, I think I know where I can cut a bit. Wish me luck.

First, a friend's amazing news: Keri Arthur's Bound to Shadows has hit #6 on the NYT bestseller list. (Which will be printed next week. The list, not the book. The book is already out.) And check out this huge display of them in my local HEB:




Also note my fellow Mira author Jennifer Armintrout's latest release, at the top of the photo! (The one with the cool neon seahorse.)

As for me, I had an awesome writing day yesterday, for the first time in weeks. Seriously. With the move and the laborious (read: pain in the tail) restructure of the Alpha plot, it's been awhile since I was truly happy with my work. And yesterday was awesome. I put in 3,900 words before dinner, then spent the evening helping #1 get our den organized.

That puts the novel at 95,004 words, and means I'm almost finished. I need about 20,000 more words, and they need to come very, very quickly. Which means I'll be working weekends too.

Today's chapter is a big fight scene. Not THE big fight scene, but the most important fight Faythe's ever had, so far. It's one on one, and she's definitely the underdog. Er... undercat. (Doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?) And the timing is... horrible. She's literally never been in a worse position, politically or emotionally, and there's sooo much going on. And going wrong...

Yesterday's chapter ended with her opponent (let's just say they have a history) throwing the first (surprise) blow, so things are not off to a good start for Faythe. But that's how I like it. I can't wait to write this scene!

In fact, you may not hear from me until it's finished...! ;-)

If you haven't already seen it, Dame Jenna posted about changes in cover art today, including several before-and-after examples. And she's giving away her new release! Click here for details.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween. Mine was miserable, except for the steady stream of children demanding candy. This was the first year we've gotten a single trick-or-treater, and they were awesome! (In Oklahoma, we didn't live in a neighborhood, and we weren't in Louisiana over Halloween--that's right, we were there less than a year.)

Other than that, I was sick--I completely lost my voice for almost three days--and my kitchen faucet sprung a fantastic leak at 8:30 pm on Halloween night. I got soaked before I realized I should turn the water off. ;-)

Number 1 replaced it the next morning (I got to pick out a new one, and it's pretty!) but when he got ready to install it, he discovered that it had come with the wrong built-in sprayer. It didn't fit the rest of the unit. He took it back, only to discover that every single one of them had been packaged the same way! I've never heard of such a factory mess up. So he picked out a very similar faucet and got it installed in short order. And it's pretty too. ;-)

Also this weekend, we ordered new recliners. My old one (my writing chair for the past five years) will go in my new office once the new one arrives. Yes, except for my chair, the office is finished! I can't wait to show pictures. It's a very cat friendly office. I didn't realize I had so many black cats! I also have a model of the car that one of my heroines drives--complete with bullet holes and cracked glass--but it occurs to me now that I don't have any bean sidhes (banshees). Anyone know where you can get a stuffed bean sidhe? Or a bean sidhe doll, or something?

I'm just not sure my office will be complete without one... ;-)

I've had two editing questions recently, but since they basically both asked the same thing, I'm just going to answer this one:

Mandi wrote, hmm i was wondering do you edit as you go when you're writing or wait till you get the copyedits?

Unfortunately (or maybe quite fortunately), the process is nowhere near that simple. It’s not like authors just write a manuscript, turn it in, then wait for copy edits. About half of my work on a novel comes between finishing the rough draft and receiving the copy edits.

After the rough draft, there’s the second draft. Then the third draft. And sometimes a fourth and a fifth draft. All before my editor ever sees the book. And in each of those drafts, I’m revising and editing, based on my CP’s advice and opinions and on my own new perspective, after having read the novel as a whole (as opposed to piecing it together one chapter at a time).

Then I turn the manuscript in and my editor reads it. She sends me a letter (or sometimes just a marked up manuscript) containing her notes about what she liked and what she didn’t like, and why. My particular editor works mostly in the form of questions. Her questions help me see where I wasn’t clear enough on a particular point, or where I’ve left a plot hole, or where there might be a simpler solution to a conflict. But these are not edits. They’re revisions. They involve mostly content: plot, voice, and consistency (of the characters, and within the series).

Armed with my editor’s notes, I make the necessary changes (and there's room for compromise if I disagree on a point or two), then I send the manuscript back. If my editor is satisfied with the manuscript at that time, it is then officially “accepted.” (This is a big deal because many contracts specify that the author gets part of his/her advance payment upon “acceptance” of the manuscript.) If my editor thinks the content still needs work, the manuscript (and another revision letter) comes back to me for another round of revisions.

Once the manuscript is accepted, the actual edits begin. There are three levels of edits: line edits (my editor does these), copy edits (the copy editor does these), and proofreading (a professional proofreader does these).

So I guess the short answer to the question is: no, I don’t wait for the copy edit to do my editing. The copy editor is supposed to catch the things I miss. But I have to do my job first, and since my name is on the book, it is ultimately my responsibility to make sure that everything between the covers reads like I want it to read.

Do mistakes still get through to the finished product? Of course. Way more than I’d like. Just yesterday I caught a typo in Shift that was missed on multiple rounds, by multiple people, including me, my CP, my agent, my editor, and the copy editor. I’d used “roll” when I meant “role.” And even though this is my eighth time to read this particular book, I never caught that before.

What’s really funny is that we’re all professionals. We do this for a living, yet we miss stuff, in part because we have to read the same book over, and over, and over. But readers invariably catch the things we miss. Of course, when one of my Shifters books hits the shelf, it’s read by many, many people (crossing my fingers that I haven’t jinxed myself there), which gives us much greater odds of catching the little mistakes than when there were just five or six of us reading it on a computer screen. And it’s not like every reader catches a typo.

But my point is… Well, actually I have two points.

1. No, I don’t just wait for my copy editor to catch all my mistakes. That would be lazy and irresponsible of me.

2. Mistakes happen, even to the best authors and editors. I can’t remember ever reading a new release that had no mistakes. Ever. This is not to say that typo-riddled novels are not a problem. They are—there’s a difference between one or two mistakes slipping through and an entire book being sloppily written and edited. But a couple of typos do not ruin an otherwise good novel.

Oh, and one more small point. I don’t mind when people email to tell me they’ve found a typo in my book. I really don't. I hate mistakes just as much as the next author, and most of the time when that happens, the reader means well. He or she is assuming I can have the typo fixed before the next printing. But in my particular situation (and it’s the same for many other authors I know), that doesn’t work. I don’t usually hear about reprints until the book has already gone back to press, which means I have no opportunity to fix typos. So (and this hasn’t actually happened yet) hearing about the same typo from fifty different readers could get frustrating, I’d imagine.

Now, if you find a typo in my website, please let me know. That I can fix myself.

Just as soon as the movers arrive with the rest of my office… ;-)