Semi-secret mainstream project. 100 Kickass pages.

I've more or less gotten the go ahead on my semi-secret mainstream project, which is either going to be a big thing or no thing at all.

But the idea seems to have some momentum, so I'm turning my attention to that. Virginia can wait a little, as much as I love her.

This project, which I prefer to keep vague, may very well be above my talent level, but I'm going to give it a try. We'll see.

The powers-that-be seem to think the premise I proposed is a good one. Now all I have do is write, in their words, "100 Kickass pages."

Sheesh. No problem. Easy.

Just "100 Kickass pages."

I'll just toss that off.

When I started writing, all I wanted is a fair hearing. So I'm about to get one, and if I can't deliver, it will be on my head. That will be all right. I'm probably a "niche" writer, and I'm comfortable with that, but I at least had to try to do this mainstreamy thing.

I'm comfortable in that world.

For some reason, the world of Virginia Reed feels comfortable and familiar to me. It's the same West I live in, separated by a century, but the same terrain, the same ethos, if you will.

There is a feeling that settles over me, one that draws from my childhood of exploring, of hunting, fishing, backpacking, boonystomping, hay bucking, horse-riding, skiing, canoeing, and so on and so forth. Back when Bend was a lumber town of 13,000 people.

All of that is still accessible to me. I can go directly into the High Desert if I need inspiration. There are wagon routes just outside of town that were blazed by John C. Fremont. Truly.

I also grew up when Westerns were still a thing. Most of TV was dominated by Westerns, there were the books, there were the movies. The Western feeling pervaded the media. 

This latest book is based on a famous incident that happened in eastern and central Oregon. I can literally follow much of the same route as my characters. 

Meanwhile, I love the Virginia Reed character, and so far I've found interesting companions to her.

I had a transition chapter to write yesterday. Virginia had received a letter from an old acquaintance, asking for help. So she leaves her ranch in California and heads by steamship to Oregon City.

I thought I'd spice it up a little by having her attacked by werewolves.

So a sinister character is following her, and then they meet.

And the guy is interesting, and he isn't a werewolf, and he suddenly becomes her sidekick.  Angus Porter is his name, and I really like the little guy.

I had this book all mapped out, I thought, but so far it's been going in unexpected directions. Starting with the next chapter, I moving into the essential core of the plot, so I'm expecting it to be more like what I envisioned.

But, as always, my subconscious will decide that.

Writing mainstream.

I'm considering, just as an experiment, writing a more mainstream book. Nothing supernatural at all. Not fantasy or S.F. Maybe a thriller of some kind.

Just to see if I can do it.

I have several books to complete first. I want to finish The Darkness You Fear, and do the rewrite of Gargoyle Dreams, and I have the fourth Tuskers to complete. I may also want to rewrite The Last Fedora, and finish The Last Sombrero.

So the "mainstream" book is something I can contemplate in the meantime. I have a rough idea, which I think might work.  So...

So much to write.

The personal miracle of writing.

Writing is such a miracle. A personal miracle. Three days after starting, I'll have 9000 words on paper. More importantly, I'll have characters coming alive, doing things. And it feels real.

I've learned how to do this. Get up in the morning, drink coffee and read the paper. Take a shower and get dressed. (Important, this -- I can't write in my bathrobe.) Very often I get my starting point and or scene while I'm showering. Maybe eat some brunch, then go to one of my three places where I write, the downstairs office, the couch, and my bed. These days I usually start on the bed.

Then, usually, several hours go by while I'm lost in my new world. When I stall, I put a pillow over my head and ruminate. If I fall asleep, that's OK. Often I wake up with the idea I needed. Mix and repeat.

I get up, have some snacks, wander around a little, then go back to writing. The important thing is the stay in the fictional dream. To have that "feel" for the world I'm in.

Often I'll finish by 4:00 or 5:00, which is pretty early, but once I get that 3000 words down, I stop. I like to save up creative energy, start fresh with every session. I will sometimes read through and correct obvious mistakes.

I most often read what I wrote to Linda, who will point out if I've gone off course, but usually tells me it's good. While reading aloud I'll often catch things and correct them.

Then I let myself relax a little. Do some chores, watch T.V., that kind of thing.

When I go to bed at night, I try to get a glimmer of where I want to start the next day. But only a glimmer -- I hold off anything more than that.

If I get stuck, sometimes I'll take a break and try for an evening writing session. Sometimes I'll go for a walk in the Badlands. Sometimes I just do that for a change of pace. It gets me out of the house. Writing is a very solitary activity.

So I sit down, and I do this every day, and 3 days later I have 9000 words, and 14 days later I have 32,000 words, and so on.

Like I said, a miracle, that works to revive my faith in life whether anything else happens or not. It just feels good to do, and it feels like what I should be doing.

A personal miracle.

Short reviews.

The Bastard Executioner is incoherent. Motivations are upside down and backward. Pretty bad. Sorry for all the people who loved Sons of Anarchy, but I felt the same way about that show.

Watched The Last Kingdom last night. Much better. Sympathetic characters, at least. But it feels a little too mainstream, if you know what I mean. What I'd like is something fairly extreme, but which makes sense.

Speaking of which, Linda and I have been binge watching, Mr. Robot. Great show. Very dark.  I'm liking it a lot.

Meanwhile, I thought Fear The Walking Dead was horrible. The last two episodes were OK, like a middling Walking Dead episode, except that the "heroes" did some pretty despicable things.  But the first few episodes were truly awful. I know, I know. "But the people didn't know about zombies!" blah, blah, blah. All the defenses I've heard. Stupid is stupid, whatever.

The Good Wife is brilliant as usual. Whenever I think I might be writer, I just watch that show and despair. Oh, well.

Castle. I'm done. Really done. Manufactured drama. It's gotten very tired.

I enjoyed the first two episodes of Scream Queens, but they have finally done it. Three shows at the same time I want to watch -- and I can only tape two. So I'm letting it go.

Gotham has been very good. I'm glad they're going there -- to the darkside. There is zero chemistry between the two romantic leads, but other than that, I think it's right on.

Agents of Shield. Kind of a mess. Never really congeals into anything very meaningful. But entertaining enough.

The Martian. Good movie. I predict some idiots will think it's real. Heh.

Binge watching is all well and good, when it's 10 episodes or less. But I've never felt like I had the time to go back and do Soprano's or Breaking Bad, no matter how good they are supposed to be. American Horror Story is becoming the same problem. Too much.

"I hate spunky!"

I read the advice long ago, before the Internet, that the way to get your mind off a submission is to write another book. It's true, I tend to get more anxious when I'm not writing, which isn't very often fortunately.

I tried to outline this new book, but there is only so much I can do before I start writing. The thing I need to do is stay conscious of where the story is going and make course corrections.

I wrote the first chapter yesterday. I wanted an "action" chapter to start it off, just like I did the first two Virginia Reed books.

This one turned out a little different. First of all, it's told from Virginia Reed's perspective. I'm still wondering if I won't end up writing a chapter to put before this one told from the perspective of one of the victims.

Anyway, I knew that I wanted Virginia Reed to be off somewhere by her herself, without her husband Frank, and that I wanted her to be in her Canowiki aspect, fighting monsters.

I started writing it from an Eastern Washington location, the conceit being that she writes a letter home to "Dear husband" about how similar it is to their ranch and how much she misses him.

So I started off in Spokane, for some reason. But within a few minutes, I caught mention of the Marcus and Narcissa Whitman Mission massacre, to the south in Walla Walla, and looked it up, and was amazed to see that it happened in 1847. Since it is now 1851 in my fictional world, it was the perfect situation for Virginia to investigate.

I love that. It's like the universe arranged it for me somehow. It's like I've been given the go-ahead, approval for my scenario, thank you very much.

I'm pretty sure I've assembled the right characters, the right format, and most of all there is a theme that is strong enough to carry a book.

Now I just need to get into Virginia's head, which is fun to do because she's so spunky.

("I hate spunky!" Lou Grant.)

Hey, there.

Interesting start to my Virginia Reed book. I wanted an action chapter, and I wanted Virginia to be away from home, and the next thing I know, I'm in Walla Walla four years after the Whitman Mission massacre and Virginia is discovering that it isn't Indians who were the perpetrators, but werewolves.

He, he.

Meanwhile, I posted a message earlier today that I had to remove.

Suffice it to say, for reasons beyond my control but are probably good, Tuskers III will not be released in October. I'll tell you more when I can.

I'm so glad to be back to writing again. I just hope I don't go on too many sidelines like I did on the very first chapter. On the other hand, I really like it.

Officially starting the 3rd Virginia Reed Adventure.

As of this week, I've started The Darkness You Fear: the Ghosts of the Lost Blue Bucket Mine. Roy at Books of the Dead has more or less given me the go-ahead.

It's set in eastern Oregon, so I'm going to try to fit in a couple of road trips before the snows fall.  Try to follow the path of the lost wagon train as best I can.

The first week has been about trying to outline the book. So far, it's been coming up with story ideas, which are coming relatively easily.

I'm pretty excited to do this. Virginia Reed is probably my favorite character I've written, and it's nice that she is the main character.

I've got a bunch of research books to go through, as well.

I think this has real possibilities. 

Doing taxes.

Basically, I'm always using the extension period. What I do is throw everything into a cardboard box all year long, set it aside in January, then a week before seeing my accountant, I lay everything out on a table and fill up a Dome type bookkeeping book. 

Pretty easy. No accounts receivable. Just money in and money out.

We'd certainly make more money if we both worked 5 days a week, but that's the cost of writing. Plus, I tell myself that I worked superhard for decades -- 60 hour weeks, probably.

Ironically, I think having Cameron in charge has actually helped sales, because he's much more up on the current comics than I ever was. Matt too. I had a lot of hobby horses that cost me money (art books, indies, cards, designer toys) and he doesn't have that handicap. Marvel sales -- the big kahuna -- are way up. I could never figure out what graphic novels to order from them.

Plus both guys are way better with the public than I would be if I was working 6 or 7 days a week. Working the hours I am now, I can remain cheerful.

So it really works out.  It only took 30 years to happen. Heh.

Impulsive or patient?

For me, it takes a weird combination of both to get anywhere.

I need the impulsiveness to take the first big step. If I think about it too long, I'll usually talk myself out of it. Sometimes I'm not quite ready, but if I try to wait until I'm ready, it also never happens.

But once committed, if I actually get a response from the first impulsive move, then I try to be very patient.

So for instance, I've made some impulsive moves over the years in my business -- the biggest is jumping on a location and opening a business when I have the chance.

On the other hand, I've been very, very patient in my downtown location, through all the ups and downs, despite not having enough space, despite some of the inconveniences.

Once I set down a path, I'm very patient and rarely quit.

So too in writing. Almost all my approaches to publishes has been a spur of the moment thing. Then once there, I try to be very patient, wait for things to develop.

In the store, I'll often impulsively decide to carry a particular product line, but then I'm patient about developing that product lines, sometimes for years, before it finally takes hold.

So...I don't tend to move much, change much, but when I do it is generally impulsive.  But once I start, I just keep on going.

Outlining and rewriting: two things I don't like to do.

Two things I've been fighting the necessity of for a long time.

Outlining and Rewriting.

Of course, all the advice is that you should do both, but I just couldn't seem to work that way.

Well, guess what? After having written quite a few novels, I've come to the conclusion that I just can't afford not to do both things.

By outlining, I mean a pretty firm handle on the plot, the character, the theme.  By rewriting I mean -- when I think I'm finished, do it one last time.

So I'm trying to install both of these steps into my process.

My first full outline is going to be The Darkness You Fear. I want to know where I'm going before I start.

Obvious, no?

Well, I didn't like outlining for a long time. Oh, I'd do a rough outline as I went along, but I usually was only a few chapters ahead, until at least half the book, and then the rest of the story would come to me. Still rough, but a general idea. Sometimes this works fine. Sometimes it leads me down blind alleys.

I felt like I couldn't discover the story without writing it, and I was afraid outlining would detract from my creativity. So it's been a real Catch-22: I can't outline until I write the story, I can't write the story effectively until I outline.

I've now had enough experience to realize that the more I outline, the better off I am.  So I'm trying to think it through as much as possible.

For instance -- when I decided to rewrite of Blood of the Succubus, I had a very good idea of what I needed to do.  In other words, an outline. And it came so smoothly. I wrote to specifications. I didn't get sidetracked, I didn't mess with the continuity. It didn't seem to detract from the creativity at all.

As far as the rewriting is concerned -- in truth, I always ended up doing that final rewrite, but each time it was touch and go as to whether I wanted to do it or would do it or whether I thought it improved the book.

I've come to the firm conclusion that it helps.

What I feared was the dreaded Word-Jumble, which definitely happens, but I've decided it doesn't matter.  So what if I fall out of love with my book? -- I've improved it so that maybe other people will like it more. That's the price I pay.

Too sexy for my resume.

Woke up in the middle of the night worried about publishing Blood of the Succubus under my own name.

I had an image of someone  -- maybe a young person -- reading Led to the Slaughter going to BOTS and being offended, or vice versa and being disappointed.

I believe it's a worthy book. I think it deserves to be published. The sex in it is not gratuitous or over the top -- but there is a lot of it. The sex is integral to the story, not the reason for the story -- but it is still there almost in every chapter.

How much is too much? What is explicit? How will Amazon treat it?

One solution would be to publish it under the name D. M. McKinnon. Not try to hide the fact that it's me that wrote it, but distinguish it as a different creature. Of course, if it is successful, it removes any benefit to the Duncan McGeary brand.

Thing is -- I want to distinguish it, but not disown it. In other words, I want it to be proudly published, and I'm perfectly willing to own up to having written it, but I want to make sure that people know that it is a different beast.

I suppose it's not a problem until it's published, but I need to think about all the ramifications.

Getting into the Western mood.

I'm getting ready to start The Darkness You Fear: Ghosts of the Lost Blue Bucket Mine, which will be the third Virginia Reed Adventure.

Roy at Books of the Dead has assured me that he's ready to publish it.

So I've already spent a lot of time in Virginia Reed's head and world. It's the Western world.

I grew up there. I grew up in Bend when it was still a small logging town. I spent most of my childhood traipsing around the countryside, hunting, fishing, skiing, bucking hay, going on trail rides and otherwise living an outdoor life. (Pretty different from now, heh, but I always just wanted to stay home and read and now that I'm an adult, that's what I do.)

I'm glad for all these experiences. I feel, for instance, that I can often get the mountain scenes right, especially the snows, because I spent so much time there. Or the desert scenes. And if I need a reminder, well, I can just head out twenty minutes in any direction and get any kind of Western feel I need.

I also grew up when Westerns were ubiquitous on TV and at the movies, and when Western novels were more widespread.

All in all, I feel like it's in my bones.

So I want to settle into that particular mood, live in that particular world for a few months.

I liked The Dead Spend No Gold, but I made it harder than it needed to be by straying a little from what I did in Led to the Slaughter.

Virginia needs to be the primary character. She needs to be in 2/3rds of the book.

And using Journals was a great way to impart information and move the story and reach for a realistic feel to the West.

I'm going to map out the plot a little more than usual this time. Spend a week or two just thinking about it before I start.

I have taxes to do by mid-month, and I want to tidy up the garden for winter, and maybe get out of town for a couple of days. (Hell, head into the High Desert and take notes.)  I may even make a trip to Baker City and just get started.  Sounds like fun.

I'm ready.

This publishing thing is complicated.

This whole publishing thing is more nuanced, complex and ambiguous than I expected.

I didn't go into it completely naive. I was published 35 years ago and I knew that the game wasn't what I thought it was. In fact, the more I researched it, the more complicated it got. That played at least a small part in my not writing for 25 - 30 years.

Of course, Amazon and ebooks have complicated that situation even more.

There are all kinds of things going on behind the scenes that I can't talk about, because it all takes so much time to play out. Their timeline is not my timeline. These developments look hopeful, but you never know. They at least look promising enough to try to go down that road.

But I do sort of miss the; Write a book, publish a book, thing that I had going there for awhile. Of course, this option always exists. If all these other avenues are explored and nothing comes of them, then I can always self-publish. I think self-publishing is gaining more and more credibility. For instance, did you know The Martian was self-published?

I don't go that route now because I like having other people do all the work, I don't have the skills, and I hate promoting.  But when the day comes, I can do all those things. That's always been my fallback position. Fallback positions that were almost first choices are a nice thing to have.

Besides, I've already succeeded beyond what I expected, so it's all bonus from here out.

Meanwhile, I keep reminding myself that writing the book is what counts. Nothing happens until I write the book, and the better the book, the more that happens.

So concentrate on that.

Collating two drafts.

Trying something new. While Blood of the Succubus was off being edited by Lara, I decided to do a little editing myself.

Now I have to collate the two.

Actually, I've done this before, and told myself I would never do it again. I would have to go from version to version and it was confusing and time-consuming.

But now I have two computers to work with, side by side, and that should make it easier. 

We'll see.

Almost done. This book has had the most work done on it of any book that I actually finished. (Faerylander has had more work, but it has never been released. Maybe Deviltree, also not released.)

It's as good as I know how to make it.

So would dope make me more creative?

This time around, all my writing has been sober.

My last writing, in the 1970-80's was somewhat fueled by beer and wine. Basically, a lot of wine at first, and then as I tailed off, a little beer to get my butt in the seat and concentrate.

In the 30 years between, I slowly quit drinking.

Still, I wondered if it would help and I've tried a couple of times.  The answer seems to be, yes it will sometimes help, for maybe a chapter or so, if I was willing to pay the price of being miserable for a few days after. It only helped in the rewriting (which I don't like) not at all in the original draft.

At that rate, it would take me a year to edit a book under the influence. For marginal improvement.

So in other words, no.

So would grass (as I called it in high school) help? Marijuana is legal in my county as of today. I'm always open to the idea of anything that could help me in my writing.

I suspect, not so much.

Besides, when I did it in high school it made me really, really paranoid. Not pleasant at all.

I do remember having some revelations. Waking up to find the revelation was: "Peanut Butter."

And I've always told this story.  I went back over my journals in high school year ago, and a pattern was very clear. I'd have some entries where I was planning to do this, or do that. Lots of activity.

Then I'd smoke dope and for the next week I did nothing at all.  I mean nothing.

So it totally removes all motivation for me.  Not to mention, I isolate myself already and this would only accelerate that.

It's not like I was going to do it, legal or not.  Linda has never been a drinker -- as in, maybe a total of a couple sips in a lifetime. So I'm not going to lead some separate life from her, for either alcohol or grass.

But I'll always wonder -- would it help in the creativity?

Work Habits.

Feel like I've had a little too much right brain activity and not enough left brain activity. (Yes, I know that whole theory has been somewhat discredited, but it makes for a useful analogy.)

Two rewrites in a row. Lots of thinking about what manuscripts should be tackled next, which should be finished, and where I should send them.

I sat down yesterday and winged out 6000 words on a new story.  A NEW story? WTF?

But that's just it, I needed it. I needed to just let the imagination go, and let it go wherever it wanted.

This isn't always the smartest thing to do, but it still felt good.

So now to totally contradict myself, I also think I need to put more thought into books before I start them. I've depended on my subconscious, and that has been great, but I've also noticed that when I already have a good idea of what I want to write, it comes much smoother.

For instance, with Blood of the Succubus, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I sat down and did it with minimal trouble. Added 35K words, none of which were misspent. 

Was watching a documentary on the glass blowing Pilchuck school.  "Think before you do," one of the teachers recommended.

Lord knows, I think it would be helpful.

I'm going to try something.  I'm going to buy a notebook, and I'm going to dedicate it to a single book, and I'm going to spend some time everyday just thinking about what I want to do in that book, but not actually start writing it.

Problem is, I only get so far on this process before the words start flowing, and I've learned never to turn down words that flow.

But I'm hoping to train myself to put it off, like I had to train myself years ago not to get caught up in the story when I go to bed at night or at work.  I say to myself, "Good thought, but come back when I'm ready."  Surprisingly, this usually works. Sometimes I make a note, but don't actually write the scene.

But even this is too much right brain thinking. I just sort of want my story-telling to take over for awhile without regard to results.



Meanwhile, my eyes hurt.

I sometimes get up and I can't focus. When I get in the car, everything is blurry.

So I've decided for the sake of my eyesight to do a few things.

First off, limit my online surfing. I know I've tried to do this before, but this eye-hurting thing is a pretty damn good reason to avoid the screen unless I'm actually accomplishing something.

Secondly, no more solitaire. I enjoy it, but I don't need to spend extra hours looking at a screen. Hell, get a deck of cards.

Thirdly, write some of the story in longhand. I like doing this anyway, and sometimes gives me a different flavor, and it's a built-in revision when I transfer it to the computer. Probably saves a little time staring at the screen.

Fourthly, get up every couple hours and do some far-focusing. Get out on the porch and stare at the mountains.

Fifthly, get out of the house and do other things. Go walking, or sorting books at Bookmark, or something. Gardening.

Hit Word-Jumble last night.

I decided to give Blood of the Succubus one last copy-edit while I'm waiting for Lara. Otherwise, I'm done.

Got about 40 pages in before I gave up.

Word-Jumble has taken over.

I had no feels for it. It's just a bunch of words, without meaning.  I mean, I can still catch grammatical errors (mostly typos) but that's about it.  I just have lost the sense of the story.  This always happens to me at some point if I keep on rewriting and rewriting.

So I just have to have faith that the last time I had feels for the story, I was on track.  Which, you know, why wouldn't I be?  So the Word-Jumble isn't a tragedy, it just makes it hard for me to enjoy my own story, but really that probably doesn't matter that much. Once I've finished a book, I never read them again, except to pick them up and sample them at random.

Thing is -- I know the book is better for the extra effort. So...I'm not sorry I did it.

But this is important.  Once Word-Jumble has set in, I must stop rewriting. Rewriting is fine as long as you have the feels.  But a terrible idea without the feels.

I think maybe doing two full rewrites in a row was a little much.  I really need to alternate original with rewrites, to keep it all fresh.

It has me questioning the whole thing, frankly. Yes, I understand that rewrites are important, but if they detract from my enjoyment so much that I don't feel like writing, that doesn't make much sense does it?

It kind of reminds me of the store. Over the years I've dropped things I don't like doing at the store, even if it cost me money.  Oh, not the basic stuff -- I still need to make enough. But a lot of the small annoying things I've just dropped.

Because if I'm not having fun, making a little extra money doesn't matter. What matters for the long run in a business is to avoid burnout, to enjoy what you're doing, so you can continue to bring energy to what you're doing.

So the same thing is true of writing. If I lose the enjoyment, I lose the wellspring from which the creativity flows.

Yeah, when writing becomes onerous, then I'm just subverting myself.

So...Well, I have at least two or three books I want to write the first drafts of, so that's where I'm going from here.

I need to wrap up Tuskers with a fourth book.

I want to write the third Virginia Reed Adventure.

And I have another Golem book in mind.  Plus two or three other smaller projects I'd like to complete.

Only then will I be ready to attempt another rewrite.

Clinching the ending.

I want to bring resonance to the ending of a book. To fulfill reader's expectations or even exceed them. To bring the themes to a conclusion. I want the character arcs completed in a satisfying way.  The plot needs to be tied up.

The ending is what the reader will walk away with, what he or she will remember. If I can create a good feeling at the end, then that's the reward.

Anyway, I've liked the ending to Blood of the Succubus, but last night I wrote a ending line that had me raise both fists in the air and shout "Yes!"

It requires that I go back an add something earlier in the book. I'd thought about doing this scene already, but it wasn't totally, absolutely necessary, so I was still mulling it over.

This one final line clinched the deal. So today I write that scene and then tie it together with the ending line and it should have a nice completed feel to it.


NEXT DAY: Today I went through the writer's group critiques -- (a couple of reams worth of paper).

So the completed book is now 93K words, or about 9K bigger than I handed off to Lara, and 35K longer than the first finished version.

It's scary how much better it is. Because I thought that first version was good. Which makes me wonder about everything I'm doing...

The only thing left to do is go through the 9K red-colored changes and make sure they are copy-edited since Lara won't be seeing them.


It's a real book.  It has heft.  It feels substantial and layered.

But because it was such a heavy rewrite, it's pretty hard for me to judge. I just have to assume that the improvements really are improvements, each and every one.

Where have you gone, Maxwell Perkins?

The most troubling thing about rewrites is that I can't always be sure I'm actually improving the book.  I mean, I may be making it worse. It's a judgment call every time, and I'm bound to get it wrong sometimes. I figure it's a three steps forward, two steps back kind of thing.

Anyway, was asking myself whether I should have added a long scene at the end of the Blood of the Succubus.

"Well, it makes it more interesting." I say outloud.

That pretty much answers the question. (Yeah, it's weird, I talk to myself a lot.)

So I'm struggling to make this book as good as I can. I've not only taken the extra time to do a final rewrite, I've not only had two different editors go over it, one of them more than once, but I've also designated yet another week to do nothing but mull it over and try to come up with improvements.

And yet -- there is always the tendency to say to myself, "Let them fix it."

Them?  The mythical editor.

I've never had one. Not one of my books has really been edited by a publisher, (well, copy-edited, which is nothing to sneeze at) but not edited in the sense of a thoughtful professional saying, "This book would be stronger with this addition or that subtraction."

I don't know if that exists anymore, even with the traditional publishers. Either you present a book that's ready or you don't.

I suppose the big guns get that treatment, but probably not too many others. It makes sense. There are tons of writers. Publishers can just pick the books that are ready, and ignore the rest.

Still, wouldn't it be cool to have a long-term professional to really go through the book and "fix it?" I dream that such an editor could up my game, move me to a higher level.

I swear, I'd probably learn a lot.

But...it also maybe a case of "Watch out what you wish for." There are tons of horror stories about intrusive and misguided editors.  So...don't want that.

But a Maxwell Perkins type editor would be educational, you know?

Like I said, it probably doesn't really matter on how I treat my books. I have to make them as good as I can with the assumption that no one is going to fix it.  Another way of putting it is "Good enough isn't good enough." Make it good, period.