Back in Bologna!

Wow!I's been a whole year since I started my Adventures in Editoriania blog. Now that I'm back in Bologna, I thought I'd reflect on a few lessons I learned last time around that I hope will have stood me in good stead:
1)I packed light!In an attempt to minimize the number of bag carried this year, I gave everyone LOTS of notice about shipping dates. If a book was going to Bologna, it had to get shipped by mid-February since I was not carrying an extra book suitcase this year. It worked, too! I have one suitcase and a little carry-one bag that attaches to the top of the suitcase. I borrowed my son's notebook computer and the company iPad so I didn't have to take my big laptop.

Sweet.

2) I arrived at the airport in Toronto with 2 hours to spare - and I used some of that time to triple check that I was waiting at the right gate. Unlike last year.
I also too the opportunity to take this picture of my Wonder Woman send-off card from my husband:

3) I had plenty of reading material loaded onto my iPad (thanks, Uma!) and my notebook, so the 5 hour stopover in Frankfurt went by quickly enough.

4) After I settled into my room in Rome, I went for dinner and then thought I'd go back to the train station to sort out my ticket to Bologna for the next day. I remember being utterly bewildered by the train station last year, wandering around lugging two suitcases, a briefcase and a purse. SO I thought, aha, I'll do a sort of reconnaissance mission now while I don't have my suitcase with me. But that turned out to be a mistake. I got a bit turned around when I left the pizza place and ended up walking in the complete opposite direction. Then I noticed it was starting to get dark and I was kinda lost. Without a map. Hmm. So I figured, no problem. I can't have gone too far. Just walk with confidence and everything will be fine. So, I was marching along, looking for all the world like I knew exactly where I was going, when my foot caught on one of those quaint cobblestones and I flew forward, landing prone on the sidewalk in front of a bemused fellow on a scooter. I jumped up, smiled and waved at him, and kept marching along, pretending that my knees weren't a bloody bruised mess under my yoga pants. (Seriously - they're shredded! But I'll spare you all the visuals this time.) So, I didn't get around to sorting out the train that night. I was just grateful to get back to the hotel. Perhaps fatigue and a glass of wine are not the best precursors to reconnaissance missions. Lesson learned for next year.

Yes. This is a drawer full of cookies. And Awesome.

5 )Still managed to get on the train to Bologna without incident and arrived at my b&b in Bologna this afternoon. I'm staying with Ali MacDonald, agent extraordinaire from The Rights Factory. This place is great! I can make tea any time I like - even in my jammies! - without having to go exploring the neighbourhood in the dark. And the room came with cookies! Worth the price of admission alone, right there.

So, lessons learned for next year, thus far:
Pack a small first aid kit.
Pack a map.
Fatigue + wine aren't a good combo if you're going on an explore.
Or if you are going to attempt to apply nail polish, either, apparently.

It Ain't FINAL till the fat lady pushes the print button.

Writing is a super long process. If you're a writer - I mean if you're really a writer who has written and revised and rewritten and re-revised - then you know what I mean. When you finally get it to the point where you're happy with what you've written, you are eager to send it out into the world. I get that.

But the thing is, you are sending your ms out to an editor. And guess what that editor is going to do with your manuscript, even if she thinks it's the most brilliant thing ever written? Yup. She's going to edit it.

So with that in mind, here is a small piece of advice. Never EVER call your document something like MyManuscript_FINAL.doc. If you've ever done this, you need to go outside, turn around three times and spit in order to appease the Writing Gods High Atop of the Thing. Seriously. That's some bad writing juju you've just brought down on your poor manuscript. Here's why.

The ONLY way that this file can EVER be called "FINAL" is if no-one ever reads it again or contracts it for publication. In other words, the only way this particular document is "FINAL" is if it's DEAD.

In fact, if your manuscript is both lucky and good enough to get contracted somewhere, it is highly unlikely that you will ever be in possession of the final document file. There will be plenty of edits, back and forth, between you and your editor. She'll tell you to do things, and you'll do them. Great. But you won't be finished there. She'll give you more edits. And you'll do them too. Then it will go to copyedit and a copyeditor will probably send back more edits for you to deal with. You'll approve some, make a few more changes. And then the file will go to design. From here on in, the "file" is out of your hands.

And guess what? It's STILL not "final." A proofer will find more changes. There may be some layout issues - these are changes that you won't really have anything say in. If the work is a picture book, there may be a whole new set of issues that come up once the text and the pictures are joined together for the first time. The flow might need adjusting once the pages are laid out. Any number of things could still change at this point.

Even once everyone is pretty well satisfied with the way things look, there will be galley proofs that come back from the printers. Things could still change. Heck, you could decide that the character's dress really OUGHT to have been purple in the last chapter. (Your publisher will probably throw a fit, but you could still make that change.) Even so, you will NOT be in possession of the final document. The printers will. Right up until the last print button has been pushed, the document is not final.

Understanding just how much work you and your prospective editor(s) have ahead of you is essential to keeping your focus and your sanity when it comes to submitting your manuscript and seeing it through to publication. So, show a submissions editor that you are seriously committed to the process right from the start and leave room in the document title for progress. Then, once you are working with an editor, as a matter of courtesy, never send back a document with the word "FINAL" in the title. If you do, then you are basically giving your editor the finger:  "It's done. Don't even think about changing a single word, comma, etc."

It's a small thing, sure. But the devil is in the details, as the saying goes.

(I mean it - go outside, turn around three times, and spit.)