I got my additional notes on Friday. Not a big deal really. A few nitpicks, a few lines to remove, a few things to switch around. I'm mostly done. Except...
One comment she had was this: The edits are pretty much more of what I said on the last draft, places where you’ve already shown something so well and then Seth in either narrative or dialogue is saying it as well when it’s stronger to let readers glean it from how it’s already been expressed. Particularly with Seth since he’s a gruff teen guy, the more you can cut along these lines, the better. I’m sure there are still some instances that remain (I’ll freely admit my strength as an editor lies more in conceptual/plot editing than nitty gritty line-editing), so you might want to run it through Dwayne or someone else one last time for an eye just for these spots, but overall, the book is in such good shape, that there’s definitely no need to kill yourself over that.
I have to keep reading that last clause over and over again because seriously. I did this in the last round. Clearly I didn't do it well enough, but I did it as well as I could. I read every line until my head was about to explode. I cut ruthlessly. It would seem that I am far beyond being able to distinguish these redundancies because she found about a half dozen more.
My husband doesn't have time to read this. Even if he did, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be able to find these remaining instances because tedious work like this is not his forte. He's all about big picture, too. (He actually laughed really hard when I read the email aloud to him and said, "Me??") I don't think I know anyone who has time right now to read and offer suggestions on that level. Or to read it at all!
There is no need to kill myself over this. There is no need to kill myself over this.
Have I mentioned how glad I'll be to finish with this book FOREVER?