Believe it or not, editors get nervous. We do. We’re taught to hide it behind our fans and laugh coyly in the face of dangerous reviews, but we’re as anxious as the next guy about our book launches. I have had the good-but-anxious-making fortune to have not one, not two, but THREE books come out in the space of about a month, of which two have already come out: Pati Nagle’s romantic high fantasy The Betrayal and Lane Robins’ gritty, lush fantasy Kings and Assassins, sequel to Maledicte.
And yes, I do spend my on sale dates–Tuesday! How did Tuesday become frightening as a concept?–clicking constantly over to our in-house pages on the books even though I know nothing will show up yet, re-reading the reviews that have come in, and generally acting like a nutter.
And as I am the editor on The Red Wolf Conspiracy, now that it’s getting close to the on sale date, I’m a bundle of nerves. But however swamped and anxious I am, I’m reminded that the authors feel it even more keenly while they’re trying to work. Red Wolf author Robert Redick wrote about the perils of series writing on his blog–and I take this as a cautionary tale for those who think the writing life is all berries and cream:
More interesting to some, however, may be the fact that I am shredded. Don’t take this as a complaint, but rather as field notes. I am currently doing promotional work for Book I, editing Book II for the last time, and furiously writing Book III. To any of these tasks I could easily devote all my waking hours, and still feel behind. The attempt to do all three well and simultaneously has given new meaning to Master Bilbo’s self-characterization as butter scraped over too much bread.
I switch on the computer in the morning before I’ve properly opened my eyes. I feel guilty about stopping work long enough to look for clean socks. I have an appearance of outward calm that is almost somnambulistic, but my insides are a haphazardly stuffed cavern of poorly processed anxieties. I crave caffeine; I drink it, and my stomach goes haywire. When I switch off the light at night, the list of tasks I haven’t attended to descends like a swarm.
… But isn’t this what I was working for all along?
More of Robert’s thoughts on the merits of being an author here.
