What a SCREW UP!!!
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I’m not sure of the pub date for Thoroughly Mannerly Millicent…
You might think that’s strange, but not half as strange as the story about why I’m scared to ask. I’ve flubbed up so horribly with TMM. (Thoroughly Mannerly Millicent) After a harrowing weekend trying to set my publishing nightmare right, I was told I’d have the final edits for TMM in a month.
I guess I should share what I did, so you can avoid a similar mistake. (like anyone would really do this)
I pitched Thoroughly Mannerly Millicent to Avalon at RWA conference 2004. I had thirty pages written and the editor asked for the full manuscript. I began writing on the drive back to Phoenix and three weeks later had a finished and polished manuscript, thanks in great part to my critique group…the butterscotch martini girls. www.butterscotchmartinigirls.com
So this is about two years ago…and then I received a contract for the manuscript this August. And while I’m published, everything I’ve done has been via computer. When I read the contract, I realized what I’d sent Avalon two years earlier had been way too short of their required word count.
Why would she agree to buy a book too short?
I got busy and added about 10,000 words and it was still too short. However, I failed to mention to my editor I’d changed the manuscript. I’m thinking…”She’s going to love me for this.” …I’ve gotten rid of the pesky “W” word…was. I dropped those weak verbs with ing endings. I added tags and got rid of he said/she said. And I’ve upped the word count! What a clever girl I am! Those of you who are published are cringing right now.
In the meantime, my editor sent edits…to the wrong addy. I waited until the day before they were due to call her. At this point, we work through the address problem and she emails the edits. Only they aren’t line edits like I’m accustomed to getting …they are done by page number. Do you get the picture?
My page numbers now no longer match hers.
I had to call her back and tell her what I did. I could tell by the tight sound of her voice, I’d suddenly become a big pain in her keister. I promised I’d get them done and in the mail, sent overnight by the next day.
Wait! Where did I put the original manuscript? I’ve moved twice across country in the last two years. I also have a dilapidated Victorian in small town Ohio where I’ve stuck stuff I couldn’t get moved. I’m not too worried because I have an old trusty hard-drive where I’m sure it is. I go hook it up and push the button to power it up and the button collapses. So what do I do?…dismantle the computer or start looking elsewhere. I have five computers…don’t ask. Most all of the new ones don’t take disks, and I can’t find the disk with TMM on it anyway. Eventually I found a version near enough to make sense to me.
Breathing easier…
Until I get a closer look at the edits… and there are a couple of things there I don’t quite “get”. By now it’s well past the end of the workday in NY and my editor didn’t give me her home number.
?
I’d promised to get them in the mail the next day, so I did the best I could. Sent a fax to NY proving I’d sent the package overnight on Friday. In the meantime…I thought I’d send a backup copy on Saturday since Friday’s excursion to the post office was $20.50. Sending the backup on Saturday was less then $9.00.
In my fax, I told the editor she’d find a detailed explanation of the changes in page numbers…”page 109 is now 158″…
Who knew the backup copy could get there before the one I’d over-nighted with my detailed list? The editor said she was just getting ready to email me(again) when the first copy arrived at her office.
A day in the life…
By the way, at the last minute I’ve decided to give away an eCopy of Knights of the Magical Realm: Warrior Gone Wild in a drawing from the comments to this post! November 15th…write a comment and your name will be entered!
Also, It’s Friday afternoon and we’re headed for Disneyland…if you comment and it doesn’t show up…I have to moderate because I didn’t figure out how to do otherwise. I’ll moderate this evening…
It’s now the following Friday afternoon and Tiffany is in the hospital…I knew she shouldn’t have chemo this week with how low her blood count was. I’m at the house with three little kids and without a clue to how she’s doing.
Oh well, you know the saying… if you can’t be a good example, at least serve as a warning. 
October 26th, 2006 at 9:06 am
Well, you live and learn…lol!
Thanks for posting this. Certainly good advice for any author. But whatta nightmare!! Hope all goes well for you and the release of your book.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Brit, my son has a saying, “It’s all good”, and this is. It’s all going to work out. Just in case, I’m sending a lot of good vibes and hugs to you.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Oh, my! Your poor thing!
Although after reading your story, now I’m even more worried about the contract revisions I just asked my editor for (first book) - I’m afraid I’ve also become a pain in the keister as you so eloquently put it.
Oh well, you know the saying… if you can’t be a good example, at least serve as a warning. 
Congratulations anyway - you made a sale and that’s always a good thing!
October 26th, 2006 at 9:11 am
That’s one reason why I’m saving all my manuscripts by date, thanks to a flash drive, tons of memory there.
Plus, I’m saving those contest entries as well, ten pages to that contest. (I deleted a scene to end on a hook.)
Twenty pages + synopsis to that contest.
You get the drift. I only have two computers, but still have mislaid a disk.
Since my laptop didn’t have a floppy drive, I bought one at Wally World and managed to hook it up. So…I can still use diskettes on those manuscripts that haven’t been moved to the laptop.
I feel for you.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:15 am
Oh I am so sorry for the problems but I have faith that after all is said and done it will be worth all the hassle you went thru.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Brit:
You’ve lived Murphy Law in great detail on this publishing trip. But, take a deep breath and write another manuscript to focus on your writing future as you’ve learned from this merry-go-around and won’t do it again. The next one will go smoother for you.
Thank you for sharing this problem so others won’t make the same mistake! That was bravery in action.
Cherie
October 26th, 2006 at 9:18 am
Sorry you had such a screwed up day!
October 26th, 2006 at 9:55 am
I’m currently sitting here, traumatized as I go through the hard copy edits of my most recent manuscript. I didn’t make any changes before I got started on the hard copy edits, but I feel your pain. And more pain and more pain…
October 26th, 2006 at 10:08 am
It sounds like an author’s nightmare story, which fits in right now with Halloween. But they accepted it? Thoroughly Mannerly Millicent will get published?
October 26th, 2006 at 10:33 am
I believe so…unless I find a way to mess it up in the meantime, TMM is scheduled for publication by Avalon in the spring….not sure of the month.
When I get the hard copy edits, I’ll know more or if I work up the courage to speak to the editor, I’ll make an announcement. Actually, the editor told me she’d call in a couple of weeks about a comedy; Lights, Cameras, Attraction! I’d sent her. I think this means she wants it and I promised her if she makes a formal offer, I wouldn’t screw it up like TMM.
Cheyenne, I’m sorry to hear about your pain, but I fully expect to feel some of the same when I get the hard copy edits of TMM.
Cherie, I’m currently working on a full I planned to send to Triskelion. I just finished a short story I’m submitting to them and I’ve committed to five stories in 2007 for Amber Quill. My problem isn’t jumping back on the horse…it’s when the horse runs away with me…
October 26th, 2006 at 11:52 am
Well you live, you learn, right? There is certianly nothing wrong with what has happened to you. It is a big lesson and one that can be helpful to any writer who has the same idea. At least your heart was in the write place. I wouldn’t get too down on yourself about it. You wanted to make your work the best for your editor. I to learned the hard way not to make changes to an MS after you have contracted it. It is then the editor’s job. No worries, and what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger
Take care hun!
October 26th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Sorry to hear about what happened to you. I am glad that I am only an avid reader and don’t have to worry about deadlines and everthing you authors have to put with. I know that I would always be screwing things up if I a deadline to meet. Hope all goes well for you.
October 26th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Oh Brit
So sorry to here about your woes
October 26th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Brit,
I think you can take comfort in the fact that you aren’t and won’t be the only one to “mess” up, especially with a two-year wait in-between. Gosh, its why I LOVE email!
Hang in there, it will all work out the way it is supposed to.
Mega hugs for a huge success!
Sandra
EiC
Aspen Mountain Press
October 26th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
Brit: Hang in there girl - we’ve all done things like this before. That just gives us another great story to tell over Butterscotch Martinis! I still remember you typing away on your alpha smart for 13 hours in the backseat on the way back from Dallas RWA - I thought you were nuts! But you finished TMM!
You’re an inspiration 
Tina Gerow
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Sexy, Snarky, Sensuous
http://www.tinagerow.com
Fire Maiden - Coming June 2006 in eBook & October 2006 in Print from Triskelion Publishing
Knights of the Magical Realm: Warriors Gone Wild - Coming in September 2006 in eBook & Print from Triskelion
Stone Maiden - Available Now in print and eBook formats from Triskelion publishing
Into a Dangerous Mind - Available Now from Triskelion publishing
October 26th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Sorry to here you had such a bad time of it. My days sometimes seems like they can’t get any worse. Just think tomorrow is always another day. It’s always better.
October 26th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
I’m thinking procrastination queen. It is amazing how you managed to pull that off and still be able to get it published. My procrastination usually has me begging for time to stop. Luckily I can’t think of any times where it would have affected me as it did you. As the saying goes ‘when it rains it pours’. Everything that can go wrong seems to at the most inopportune times. I’m just glad it all worked out for you in the end.
October 26th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Oh, Brit, I did almost EXACTLY the same thing on my first book, Perils of the Heart! I submitted it, and while waiting to hear back, I revised it to send out to other publishers in case it was turned down. Somehow I ended up with several different versions, none of them the one I’d submitted!
Dorchester bought the book (they had hard copy of the full), and then asked me for an electronic version. Oops. Didn’t have one that matched what I’d sent in and I didn’t have a hard copy of what I’d sent so I couldn’t “fix” one of the versions to match. Well, long story short, they figured it out and I did the revisions (thank heavens there were very few).
Dorchester did go on to buy my next book, and my editor said to me gently when I turned it in “the electronic version should be EXACTLY the same as the hard copy.” Blush, blush, cringe.
Even since I have been very anal about keeping versions labeled and backups where I know exactly where they are and what they are. You live and learn.
Have a martini.
October 26th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Well, Brit all I can say is never a dull moment with you. Thanks for sharing this information with us. Just another reason I’m so glad to be one of your critique partners. You are a wealth of knowledge for an aspiring author such as myself. You’ve shown me practically everything that can happen to a writer, all the good and the bad and the craziest of experiences. So, all that being said, take a deep breath, have a butterscotch martini and go do what you do best. Write. It will all work out just fine.
Antoinette
Butterscotch martini Girl
October 26th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
At this very moment, Carol and Tina are tormenting me…I’m going over the critiques they gave me on my current WIP. It’s as if they got together and picked every other paragraph to say “add more characterization”. It takes me forever just to get through two pages. However, in their defense, they’ve helped me write a better story! My reviews for Time Thieves from the Warriors Gone Wild anthology have be out-of-this-world!
Thanks to the butterscotch martini girls…you rock!
Jennifer, thanks for sharing. You know how I feel about your books. I’m a true fan! Just finished…Just One Sip…at least the story you wrote. http://www.jennifersromances.com/newsnews.html
October 26th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
Wow. I guess you had a headache this big! I am sure you can say it will never happen again.
Ok, You deserve a nice relaxing day doing what ever it is you want to do. IF anyone complains tell them Susan said so.
October 27th, 2006 at 4:54 am
Thanks so much for sharing this. As a fairly new published author I appreciate the heads up. Back up, back up, back up. Now I see the importance of keeping things organized. Thanks again!
October 27th, 2006 at 5:51 am
Oh, I do feel for you! I’m having such a hard time trying to get one of my books out in print - and I’m on my third go around *grin* Three’s the charm, they say. Good luck!
October 27th, 2006 at 7:15 am
Brit — You have gone through one of my greatest fears and lived to tell the tale. What a valuable “lesson learned.” Thanks for sharing.
October 27th, 2006 at 9:11 am
OMG thats so crazy! that alone would have driven me to drink! at least now you can sit back and laugh a bit at the whole situation. you might want to send your editor something sweet… ya know? for not killing you and all.
honestly, if it were me, I would had done the exact same thing thinkin that was what needed to be done to keep the contract valid. you survived this and your good to go so I think that calls for a bit of celebration
October 27th, 2006 at 9:56 am
Jeez, Brit, I’ve submitted manuscripts long ago I never heard from again. It could happen to me. I never kept a copy of the version I sent out. I’m crossing my fingers, but on the other hand, I’d love to get a sale! So here. Take the good with the bad. Don’t worry, it will all come together in the end.
October 27th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
OK, wow… You’re really making me glad (again) that I’m a reader and not a writer! But when I think about it, I’ll bet a lot of people have similar horror stories; just a little different situation depending on their job.
Example: I make bath & body products. I love my job because it allows me to work at home, and it’s just really cool to be self employed. But when things go wrong, there’s no one to blame but myself.
A couple of years ago I was dealing with a HUGE wholesale order, to the tune of 2,500 small bottles of homemade lotion. It was getting close to Christmas (yeah, retail + Christmas = stress), and I was 6+ months pregnant. So I recruited some friends to help me label the bottles. Everything was going as well as could be expected, and I was finally in the home stretch, getting everything boxed up & ready to ship. I even had the shipping labels done, and a notice had been sent to the customer that they were on their way. Something made me think to check the bottom layer of lotions (each box had two layers), and… the bottles on the bottom layer were not labeled. *THUD* My well-meaning friends hadn’t realized there was a 2nd layer. Panic, cold sweat, yeah, you get the picture. Needless to say, I had to delay the shipment and work like mad to get everything straightened around. What a nightmare.
Yep, I think I can relate — even if I’m not a writer. Hang in there! :>]
~Lindy
October 28th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Brit-
I can only imagine the chaos at your house as you searched through multiple computers and disks to find the closest version to the original.
Enjoy Disneyland! And I’m really jealous about Del Taco.
MuPpeT
October 29th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
This is about as bad as when I did a paper for College English. I was running late and need to type it up. So I went to the college computer center in the library. I gat finished typing and printed it out, without proofreading it first. When the teacher gave me my grade she said that I would have gotten an A, but that I should have looked the paper over before I turned it in. I looked at the paper and saw that when I hit double space I forgot to check for errors. When it printed out it left gaps on several pages…lol
Teresa
October 30th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
(((Brit))) Aww…I hope that you at least relaxed a bit and had fun at Disneyland.
November 3rd, 2006 at 7:57 am
As a publisher and a person who knows many writer trust me your story though unique is nothing compared to some of the screwups I have heard. At least now it is done the manuscript is in and you are cooking with grease LOL. Take a breather. Hope you enjoyed Disney.
November 6th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
[…] Brit Blaise Don’t forget to stop by http://britblaise.com/blog/?p=22 for a chance to win a copy of Knights of the Magical Realm: Warriors Gone Wild. Just leave a comment to enter. Drawing on Nov. 15th. […]
November 9th, 2006 at 4:23 am
Oh, dear! You poor thing! If it’s not one thing, it’s another. I’m sorry to hear about your daughter. I wish her and yourself all the best.
Tina
November 10th, 2006 at 7:27 am
Cyber hugs accepted and much appreciated…thanks for the encouraging words Debbie!
Tehya, I’m up to my ears in lemons, but I’m squeezing…
Thank you, Tina.
Elizabeth, right now, this day…Tiff is doing good. What worries me is her treatment every other week. Next Tuesday will be her eighth treatment, leaving four to go. These next two months are going to be difficult.
November 10th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Well, Brit, when you are finishing your 50th book for publication, you will look back on this and…… naw, it will still make you crazy! Good Luck!
November 11th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
Well, you acted with the best of intentions. Thanks for the chuckle.
November 11th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Oh, man! I feel for you. I have a house in chaos from 2 kids moving in and out from apartments back to college and sorting and shuffling on the way, plus, as those who are kind put it “I am organizationally challenged.” I only have 2 computers at this point, but I must have 3-5 hard drives (in a cardboard box, not any desktop case) that went haywire that I keep thinking I should try to retrieve any data that might still be possible, plus drives where Windows got corrupted so I didn’t want to reformat and lose EVERYTHING, so I started from scratch with a new HD, OS, installing everything all over again, and never got back to retrieving stuff from the old ones, because the process of reinstalling eveything gets real old having done it too many times. You would think from that I’d say my computer is the bane of my existance, but PAPER really is. I can know exactly what something I need looks like, and where I last saw it, but with abandoned re-organization attempts, paper landslides, and kids pushing things out of their way, it can take hours to find what I need. I really do wish we could go to a paperless world. Save trees, but require auto-backups in duplicate on every computer system.
November 13th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Wow! What a story. As a reader, it makes me appreciate those wonderful stories that are written and that they just don’t “flow” onto the pages.
Hope things go smoother from now on for you. Sorry to hear about your daughter and hope things go better for her. Will send good thoughts your way for both of you.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
WOW did you have a head ache after all of that? LOL Sounds like you should have.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:28 am
Jason Maxoderm Smith…
Very interesting point of view, dont know how it would translate though….
October 14th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Computer Maintenance Tips…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…