"FINAL" EDITS OF THE LUNATICS' BALL COMPLETE and a one year anniversary

I finished the "final" edits of THE LUNATICS' BALL last Sunday and sent them in. That is, the manuscript went through a round of developmental edits from the Mad Creek EIC Kristen Elias Rowley. As agreed, she made suggestions for cutting the manuscript from 92,000 to 85,000 words (partly by cutting several essays, but also by trimming prose throughout, transforming two essays in particular that I now love). I had to really mull the edits over, and got the manuscript back to her for one last round where I answered her questions, mulled some more, inserted all 14 illustrations with notes for production and alt text descriptions for the visually impaired. (Permissions, especially for the illustrations, and finding high res photos turned out to be SO much work.) Sent the "final" manuscript, and all 14 images, and the permissions log and backup materials on the specified due date: April 19, last Sunday.

There will be more to do. A big marketing questionnaire. Copyedits. Approving a cover (I provided a lot of input and two possible illustrations, but the cover will be the Press's decision.)

But this is a major milestone and this week feels like vacation, despite quite a bit of work at CRAFT for our Memoir Excerpt & Essay Contest.

EXACTLY one year ago, on April 24, 2025, I submitted THE LUNATICS' BALL to Mad Creek Books/Ohio State University Press! (I didn't realize it was an anniversary when I started this post. I'm amazed.) Now it will be a book by March 27, 2027. Which may sound like a long time, but I was already prepared for that by the illustrious members of my writing group who've published books in the past few years (with Big 5 publishers and indie publishers).  And prepared for anything, given their experiences, when it came to editing: I lucked out with an enormously talented editor.