I am still editing Under Shōko’s Bed.  The marks this time through are much fewer, though.  Of course, I must eventually stop—and I want to; I have other projects.  But I want this novel to be as good as I have in me.  So four other people are reading it now.  I gave out red pens along with the novel.  I will have their feedback in a few weeks.  I don’t know whether to hope for a lot of red ink.

In the meantime, I will finish my own edit, then read it through yet again, but more quickly, trying to judge the flow of the story and whether it drags.  If I’m still waiting at that point, I will work through the text slowly—hopefully for the final time—looking for more of the problems William Strunk proscribes in The Elements of Style.  One by one I am getting them into my head (appropriately updated for changes in American English in the last hundred years.)  I wish I had a punctuation expert.  I know the basic rules.  I am into gray areas now that punctuation pundits on the Internet never mention.  My wife tells me that in those situations I can simply decide, so I do.  And I am careful to keep the punctuation all internally consistent.  Still, I’d be more comfortable if there were rules.

As others read, I have to keep working.  I don’t have the patience to simply wait.  When I cut through all of this impatience, though, I am staring at the same difficult decision I have been facing all along: whether to self-publish.  I had decided to do that, but my editor told me the story is good enough for a publishing house.  Now I’m all up in the air again.  If I self-publish, it’s time to be finding a book cover designer.  If I go with a publishing house, I imagine they will handle that.  But how long could it take to find a publisher?

More than anything, I hate the indecision.  I am impatient to know what will happen.  But it’s a journey, and I choose the path.  So I will contact my editor again and get some advice on publishers.  But when I do that, I would like to send an updated manuscript, and that means waiting for my readers to give me feedback.

Waiting—and editing—but still, waiting.