I just finished reviewing Deanna Hoak's masterful copy-edits on Paragaea: A Planetary Romance, and found it a strange experience. Even though it's been only seven months since I handed in the finished manuscript, I discovered that there were large chunks of the novel that I didn't remember writing, and even a few supporting characters I had completely forgotten about until they appeared onstage. Towards the end, I was reading along, forgetting to pay attention to the copy-edits and notations, just to see what would happen next.

Admittedly, it's been a busy, stressful seven months, but still and all! Perhaps it's that early senility I've been dreading, or I suppose it could be attributable to sharing a house, a most of my day, with a 2 year old. But I think this was all to the good.

Enough distance, and one don't measure the actuality of the book with the pristine conception they had in mind when starting the project (and the actuality is never as good as the first lofty ambitions for it, I've found), but can instead approach the thing on its own terms. And, for my part, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Paragaea is an enjoyable read. How about that? (Now I just have to worry about readers enjoying it, too. So far, I don't think anyone beyond my editor, my copy-editor, and the map-maker have read the thing.)