Thursday, July 30, 2009

"Double Space Everything and Move On"

The title to this post is a good friend's response to a crisis I was having last night. To wit:

Last night, about two weeks before deadline, I composed an e-mail on problems/questions I was having about final MS preparation, and sent it off to editor's assistant.

Auto reply: Assistant no longer works for the press. Please contact editor directly.

Okay. No problem. Editor is, of course, Fabulous Editor, and has always been helpful. I forwarded the message.

Auto-reply: Editor is out of the office until August 10 (that's four days before my deadline).

Arrgh!!!

And my friend suggests: Double-space everything and move on, which I think is actually good advice, and boils down to: "Control the things you can, and don't worry about the things you can't."

And then....

FabEd e-mails FROM HIS VACATION IN EUROPE to answer my questions, because he knows that I'm in a rough position here. And the answer to most of my fiddly questions is basically, "Sounds good. And if there's a problem, we can totally fix it in later stages."

I love FabEd, and suggest that everyone work with him.

Off to Jury Duty!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a smart editor. There are a few areas or activities where do-overs are impossible--thoracic surgery, Olympic sports, and soufflés come to mind--but most have at least some room to fix it in the mix, as they say in music recording.

AliceAcademic said...

FabEd appears to have a well-earned pseudonym. Best of luck with the remaining revisions!