I finished correcting those page proofs last night and, as I forsaw, gremlins had indeed been at work. There were my own typos and less-than-felicitous word choices to be dealt with but there were, as well, new problems that had sprouted like unsightly growths during the transition from copy-edited manuscript to page proofs. Lines transposed, paragraphs omitted, important spaces to indicate passage of time or change of speaker left out, and worst of all, the entire historical subplot was no longer in the italics that, I think, are very helpful in setting it apart from the present day story. ARRGH!
Herself (my editor the Tigress -- hmmm, maybe that's the tie-in for the picture) assures me that all will be well before the final product hits the shelves. But the unfortunate thing is that it's these proofs, in their uncorrected state, that are made into the Advance Reading Copies that go out to reviewers and such. I cringe to think of anyone thinking that I meant the book to be like this. Which is why, though Bantam sends me ARCs to dispose of as I wish, I rarely pass them on, preferring that readers meet my latest offering wearing its Sunday clothes and with its face shining clean.
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