Winging It is done!
Well, sorta…..
Writers, the world over, know that a book isn’t really done until the editor says it’s done. Typing ‘The End’, onto the last page of the manuscript is, in many ways, just the beginning
So, on to step 2: Hand it over to editor extraordinaire, Elaine Morin, who will wrestle with the unruliness of the manuscript for a few months before she throws it back my way to carry on fighting that thing into submission. After more nail-biting and hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth, I will chuck that baby back in Elaine’s direction. Back and forth we’ll go until one of us yells ‘Uncle!’
After we’ve both come to the conclusion that there is no possible way to make the manuscript any shinier, we’ll high-five our way to the closest pub where we will imbibe a few and sleep it off before proceeding to step 3, which is to send it to award-winning designer, Natalie Olsen of Kisscut Design. Because you must never rush a genius, this will, of course, involve plenty of waiting mixed with difficult lessons in patience, and all of it sprinkled with a subtle sauce of unrelenting self-doubt and fear that we’ve missed something.
And then one day, we will get that email from Natalie that we’ve been waiting for. Attached there will be a couple of choices for the cover. Natalie created the cover art for A Root Beer Season, as well as When the Wheels Fall Off. For Root Beer, she created three choices from which I chose my favourite and then we tweaked until we were both seeing the same vision. By the time she created the cover art for Wheels, she knew so well what would hit that sweet spot that only one shot was needed.
Now it was time for the checklist: Acknowledgements, back cover copy, blurbs, ISBN, and reserve Owl’s Nest Books for the launch. All the boxes ticked. The only thing remaining is the notification that the printer has shipped the book.
Easey-peasy. With the enduring support and encouragement, not to mention the odd bottle of wine, from my Crabbie-Apple sisters, the seemingly impossible becomes possible and with everyone’s sanity intact.
Since, as is well-known in the Calgary writing community, winter traumatizes me, and for the most part, leaves me whining and snivelling on my sofa for the duration, the launch of Winging It will take place sometime in the late spring of 2017.
Watch this space!