Editing a Book is Like Buying a House, or: Being a Grown-Up is Terrifying and Exhilarating
I’m forty-seven years old. I’ve had bunches of jobs. More than a dozen, just counting employers and not different positions, or jobs I’ve quit and come back to. I’ve owned eleven cars, and rented fifteen apartments/houses/condos. I’m a mom, a widow, an author, and an occasional college student. You’d think I could get over the “this is scary holy cats!” carp by now. And as I type this, no joke, “Eye of the Tiger” starts playing. I’m working on buying a house. It is, astonishingly, like editing a book. Which, coincidentally enough, I am also doing right now. What are these similarities? There’s so much to consider. Two out of three in my household take the bus to work/school. We thought several houses would be in the running because they were close to a bus route that wonderfully runs clear across town, starting near kid’s school then passing near housemate’s place of work. Then we saw that the earliest bus going west (the necessary direction) on that route would not get her to work until an hour after her start time. Suddenly a lot of houses on the east side are out of consideration. Houses on the west end may still work out. Except the kid’s school is on the far east side of town…and on, and on. I’m editing the second book in a trilogy. What did Hiro say about the Watchstones in the first book? Did he know what he was talking about when he said it, or…