This is getting

ridiculous. Edits were supposed to be a breeze–thanks to the careful eye of my new editor Heather–but something happened on the way to the office. I got better.

I wrote Memphis is Burning (by the way, we’re working on a new title; how does Losing Graceland sound?) two years ago, and haven’t looked at it since June ’09. It sold, I waited, I wrote some good and not-so-good short pieces, started my next book, finished editing Jack the Bastard, etc. The details are unimportant. Bottom line: sometime between selling and now, I became a better writer.

Of course, this should always happen. It certainly happened after I sold Gods. This is why authors don’t read their work once it’s allegedly-immortalized in print. We can’t fix it, so why bother?

But bad habits do linger, which I like to call stylistic quirks, and no matter how much we keep writing and reading, they stay hidden. Enter a group of new readers (my classmates), who throw back that dusty curtain and shine a light on the old stylistic quirks. We could also call those quirks words that suck. I wouldn’t argue. No, they haven’t read Memphis is Burning AKA Losing Graceland. Doesn’t matter. They still exposed my bad habits.

Now what? Chopping, that’s what. I’d hoped to get the edits done by this weekend. Pshaw. Instead, I’m chewing my nails and hoping the word count doesn’t plunge too low. We began at a trim 60k. Halfway through it’s dropped to 57k. Still trim, but getting close to anorexic…