ARE YOU EVER DONE EDITING?

Here's the thing about today's post--Are you ever done editing? -- I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the answer is a resounding NO.

It was with great pleasure that I sent off what I thought was a final submission manuscript for THE DEVIL'S DUE. I'd been working on read-throughs, critiques and edits with an author friend so it had to be ready. In turn, I do the same for his manuscripts when he asks me to.

Well, we went through THE DEVIL'S DUE with what we thought was the proverbial "fine tooth comb", but I guess there were gaps in the teeth, because after the manuscript was on it's way, my friend decided to skate through the first few chapters again. Maybe it was for old times sake. Or, maybe to see what a great job we'd done by finding glitches and errors and fixing them before submission.

Instead, he found more things that we missed. One thing led to another, and before you knew it we were making our way through the manuscript again, with changes or corrections in almost every chapter. Well, since he really liked the story and didn't mind going through it again, it was sort of fun. This time we were really careful. We were going to catch every errant comma, every typographical transposition, and anything else that dared slip past our astute eyes the first time. There. It was done! I resubmitted the manuscript to my publisher, confident that every single thing had been ferreted out.

But no--now my friend was suffering withdrawal symptoms. He needed to look for commas. He missed the story. Begin round three. It was bound to be boring, because there was nothing left to find--or was there?

You guessed it. Things we'd sailed right past now were painfully obvious. We've become THE DEVIL'S DUE junkies, making our way through it for the third time--needing our fix for the day. Gotta find commas--don't care if they're ones that are missing or ones that shouldn't be there. Quick, I need to find a glitch in the timeline. Can't find any. Oh no. Are timeline faux pax off the radar now? Okay, give me a reference that could be clearer, right name in the wrong place. Anything. As my friend e-mailed me recently, "Gotta...edit."

Seriously, this manuscript has reinforced the already proven concept that many times our eyes read what we think we see, not what is actually there. That's how those pesky errors might sneak past us. One readthrough is not enough, two might do it, but three are better, I guess. However, when three is complete, the rest will be left to my publisher's editor. That is unless my friend needs another fix of THE DEVIL'S DUE.

--ARLISS ADAMS