Almost a book ...

As I write this, my ebook about Cuba, entitled Vultures Overhead, is with the copy editor.

But by the time this post is published on the Authors Electric blog, I'll have the manuscript back and know the worst - or the best.

The first time I let a copy editor loose on anything I bit my nails and wept into my pillow as I waited for it to come back. Would she like it? Not like it? Would it be so covered with alterations my words would be unrecognisable? (All those days waiting for exam results came flooding back.)

I think I'm a little more sanguine now. For it doesn't matter whether the copy editor likes it or not - as long as she does her job. I know I can be a bit dash-happy, and she'll sort some of those. She'll find any mis-spelled place names (I'm ashamed how many of those I send her). She'll stumble over clunkiness because she'll see what I've actually written and not what I think I've written.

Even so, these are waiting days. I've no idea how long it will take to go through her edits, to make sure the format is ebook-friendly (I think it is, but I've thought that before). To write the opening pages and the closing credits and get the whole thing washed and dressed and ready to go.

But I can't let this opportunity go by without giving you a sneak at the cover:


And, for those of you who might not know what it's about, here is the blurb:


It’s time for JO CARROLL to pack her rucksack again, and this time she’s heading west, to Cuba.
Everyone, it seems, has been to Cuba, or wants to go to Cuba, or knows about it. Cuba, they insist, is on the brink of change. A market economy will finally see off the old cars and rationing. They’ve been saying that for decades. But what face does Cuba present to a tourist in 2014?
She finds salsa, of course, and cigars, and wonderful coffee. But what surprises wait for her when the music stops?


I wish I could give you a publication date - but I'd rather leave that hanging than promise a date and it's not ready. But I'll be shouting about it on Facebook and Twitter when the time comes, and there will be links on my website here.

But I wonder how other people fill these waiting days. Writing other stuff? Sitting in the garden with a book? Walking across hills? Watching cricket? ...

Comments

thewhitespike said…
Good luck Jo, it sound like a fantastic book. Enjoy the cricket :-)
CallyPhillips said…
Ah waiting, one of life's skills! I first realised I had to change my attitude to it when stuck in a carpark in Birmingham at 5pm on a Friday waiting for AA to arrive - who took 3 hours - at the end of a week long course with a 5 hour drive home ahead of me. That was the day I started trying to 'embrace' waiting and develop it as a skill. why only today I am waiting for a dog food delivery, (active high level waiting) and submissions for ebook festival (low level waiting) and 4 sets of books from new distributor (medium level anxiety waiting) but as regards 'creative' waiting - hey, never have enough time to do everything I want to so it's just a case of move on to the next creative project. Tag-team working is the way to do it I find. At the moment I have at least 3 projects 'on the go' in an active state and finding time to watch the tennis and be out in the sun reading (even though that's part of projects and so can't really be a 'waiting' activity) so I don't have time to worry about waiting. Though my 'best' wait ever is that after 8 years of growing a coffee plant from a bean THIS YEAR I have got ONE coffee cherry (they are called cherries when still on the branch) growing and for me that's a total vindication of the acceptance of waiting as a valuable part of life. I think growing things helps one in this lifeskill - though can't wait while grass grows at the moment - it's more like waiting till the rain stops so one can get out and cut it again. But I am actively waiting for the first cherries to be ripe on the trees (we've just put the fruit cages up to catch/deter blackbirds) and now I'll add waiting to your cuba book onto my mental 'waiting' list. Embrace waiting, but keep creatively active is my dictum (for today)
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