I’ve just come through the first stage of revisions and edits with Six Metres of Pavement and I’m pleased with the recent changes. Mostly, it’s small stylistic stuff and catching the strange little time/date/progression inconsistencies. The latter drives my author’s perfectionistic mind a little batty. I’ve been dreaming new scenes that in the middle of the night seem terribly important to add and in the morning are just terribly weird.
It’s been good working with a skilled editor, and I lucked out when I was assigned Dundurn’s Shannon Whibbs, who has been helpful with the story-telling and the tiny details. I’m sure she’d find a grammar issue in that last sentence.
And now I’m working on a glossary. When I went out to do Stealing Nasreen readings, I learned not to assume that people know about pakoras and mamajis. Not every town has a large enough South Asian community to help people learn about such things. And this time around, with a character like Celia, a Portuguese-Canadian widow, I’ve also needed to define terms like frango and bom dia.
The book won’t be available until Feb/March 2011, but you can get a sneak peak of it’s cover here.