This week I got back edits on The Holiday Detour from my editor, along with some very flattering praise for the book. Getting her edits back means the book is trucking along the editorial schedule (pun intended). I’ll return the edits to her within the next few weeks, and after that, we move into copyediting and production.

I find getting feedback from a qualified editor to be a great joy. I say “qualified” to mean someone who understands that what they want you to say or how they want you to write is not what they should be editing for. Instead, a qualified editor is knowledgeable enough to help make the author’s own voice shine through. My editor at Bold Strokes Books picked up on a few nuances of my writing style that we are going to foreground in the revised manuscript.

I also find it pleasurable to return to a manuscript after time away. (In fact, I find this a necessary step in the revision process, as I’ve explained in a previous post.) There are so many minor language things I see to clean up and so many rediscoveries to delight in.

The Holiday Detour is a book very near to my heart. There is so much of me and my spouse in it. So many Easter eggs of my life. It’s a work of fiction, to be sure, but the small details are like a hit parade of everything Jane. And the story between Dana, the main character, and Charlie, the nonbinary person who challenges Dana’s understanding of her sexuality, is heartwarming and funny. I can’t wait to get these edits returned and for the book to be fully in production, closer to the day when you get to read it.

The Holiday Detour comes out in September. Stay tuned.