Story Magic

132 - Revising while integrating feedback with Sam Cameron

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Today, Emily & Rachel talk about revising while integrating feedback with Sam Cameron!

The audio from this episode came from Emily's interview on The Truant Pen Substack. Check it out and subscribe here: https://truantpen.substack.com/


Ready to make readers so in love with your characters they can’t stop biting their nails in anticipation?  Grab The Magic of Character Arcs free email course: https://www.goldenmayediting.com/arcsmagic

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Emily:

Foreign. Hey, writers. Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of. I'm Emily, and today we are including a special edition podcast episode that was originally recorded with Sam Cameron for the Truant Pen substack. Sam is a book coach, an author, and a member of our tenacious writing community. And in this episode, we discussed what it's like to revise with editor or agent notes. It was a fantastic discussion about how we both process and integrate feedback slightly differently, which was really cool. And we broke down some tips and tricks for navigating feedback relationships. It's a. This is a great episode for anyone who's looking for practical advice on how to integrate feedback of any kind, whether it's from a beta reader, an agent, an editor. Um, any kind of feedback doesn't have to be the official agent or editor kind. Um, after you're done listening, make sure to go check out Sam's incredible substack. It's called Truant Pen, where she gives actionable advice for writers. And I will put the link in the show notes so you can check it out. But in the meantime, enjoy.

Sam Cameron:

Welcome to Truant Pen, a substack of actionable advice for stuck writers. I'm your host, Sam Cameron, and today I am joined by Emily golden. Emily golden, aka E.B. golden, is the epic romantasy author of the Crimson Curtain duology, as well as a developmental editor and book coach. With Golden May. Since she could hold a pen, she's used speculative fiction to make sense of a nonsensical world. And when she's not writing, you'll probably find her in the mountains of southwest Colorado with her husband, daughter, and sometimes their cats. Emily, welcome. Thank you for coming. Hi.

Emily:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

Sam Cameron:

Me too. So to get our listeners caught up, the origin of this conversation is that I was talking to one of my critique partners, longtime critique partner, writing friends, who recentishly started working with her first agent. Um, and after all of the excitement cleared and settled and, you know, she signed the contract and all of that, she got her first edit letter from her agent with suggestions about how to change the manuscript to get it ready to go on sub. And my friend came to our critique group meeting and she said, I have no idea how to do this. I don't know, like, how do you go from a manuscript that you've been working on alone for 10 plus years? And I think it was 10 plus years or something like that in her case, how do you go from working alone on this manuscript to suddenly having somebody else in your process in this really big way? And how do you actually go tackle, piece by piece, the things that they're asking you to do from this edit letter? And what she brought up in asking this in our meeting was she knows how to find writing resources. She's very good at that. But she was like, people just don't talk that much about what happens to them. Like, all of the resources are about how to get your agent. And then once you. It's sort of like, okay, once you have your agent, you figured it out, solved. You don't need craft resources anymore. You know what you're doing. And so I thought that she brought up a really good point, which is that it is a new phase of the process. It's very different. And so the reason I invited Emily here is that I know she has been through this part of the process of getting feedback both from an agent and an editor. So what we're going to do is I'm going to ask Emily some questions and we're both going to kind of talk about our own experiences with agents and editors and how to. What to do with that feedback. So to start out with, could you start by telling Emily everybody how you got your agent and your publisher and just like, I don't know, your. Your publishing origin story a little bit?

Emily:

Yeah, sure. Gosh, it's all a blur. So let's see. I got. So I started querying my. So it was my second book. I'll start there. Because I feel like people need often should know this, right? That that first one doesn't always go anywhere. And I didn't actually finish the first one. I worked on it for like five, six years. Um, it was an epic, a huge epic fantasy. And I just sort of was like this. I need to try something else. Cause I'm spinning my wheels. So I then started what became the Crimson Curtain. And then we worked on it for 3ish years, I think, before I started querying. And so I started querying, let me do the math. Jan. February. February of 23. Um, and then I was out to agents, and I signed with my agent, Laura Dale, in May. And it's all hazy because I was pregnant at the time. So it's all just sort of a blur. But I was. And then Laura and I did edits on Crimson with the goal of having it ready for submission when I had my baby. Cause I was just like a natural, natural timeline. So that was September. So then she took it out on submission. In September I got an offer from Amazon publishing from their 47 north imprint. And then that was. It was really fast. It was like two weeks which is not normal to get. And I also a blur because I was. Had just had my baby. And then I did edits with Amazon has a weird way that they do edits that I can talk about later. But I did edits with them from September to January. That was like my first passive edits. And then I think I did like one more passive or two more passes of like copy inline edits after that and then wrote my second book for them. I sold the duology so that I have since that's probably the. That's the only project I'm planning to do with them for now that they're planning to do with me for now. So I have another book on submission wide right now. It did not sell in two weeks but. But yeah, it's out there and we'll see what happens with it. So that's. And I did. I did hire a developmental editor to work with me on that one before I went on submission. So that's kind of my quick and dirty.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. So mine for some people who are listeners will know some of this already. So my.

Emily:

I don't think I do. So I'm.

Sam Cameron:

Oh, you don't.

Emily:

Okay, good. No, I know like some of the basics, you know, just from. From hearsay and everybody talking. But yeah, so I'm curious.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, so mine is. So I'm actually on my second agent right now. So I wrote. I wrote two books when I was in high school that will never see the light of day. They were like, you know, the books you write as a teenager and you're like, oh, it's a book length work of fiction, but it doesn't. Yeah, that's about all the definition of book that it meets. So those were, you know, my learning experiences. And then when I was a senior in college, I wrote a historical novel as my senior project. Cause I went to a small liberal arts college where I could convince the history department to let me write a historical novel as my senior thesis.

Emily:

That's amazing.

Sam Cameron:

Um, so that was. That was great. So that was between like 2013 to 2014. I wrote the first several drafts of that. And then similar to how you kind of had some life stuff that was hemming you in or kind of made a natural deadline. I knew I was about to go to grad school right after college. So I queried during like the six weeks or so or like got Ready to query in the 6 weeks or so between when undergrad ended and when grad school started. And basically was querying the summer and fall when grad school was beginning and got an agent offer around Thanksgiving of that year. And so then I was represented for that manuscript for about four years, I think between 2014 and 2018. Did not sell the book, had trouble finishing anything else. Cause I was like a brand new teacher trying to do my job and write at the same time. And so eventually I parted ways with that agent and submitted that book around a couple more years while I worked on other things. And then eventually in I guess it was 2024, I started working with Emily's business partner, Rachel as my book coach. And Rachel helped me write a new idea that I had for a queer rom com. So I think that was the fifth book I wrote, like, if you include those two quote unquote books I wrote in high school. And then that one I pitched at a conference in May of 2025. Yes, May of 2025. And I expected that to be the soft launch of my pitching process because the manuscript was with beta readers. Um, and similar to how Emily ended up selling her manuscript remarkably quickly, that agent process went remarkably quickly. And within like a week or so after that conference, I had a new agent. So that was amazing. And then I worked with her on getting the manuscript, doing a revision on the manuscript in June, went out on submission, have not sold it yet, did some more revisions. It's out on submission again as of the time we're recording. Hasn't sold. So. So that's, that's where I've been. So I've been on sub a couple of times. I've done, you know, I've had an agent a couple times, but I haven't gotten to the, the publisher part of the process yet.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's such a great example of like, in publishing. It's like, it's so unpredictable. Sometimes it happens so fast, sometimes it takes a long time. Like it's just. Yeah, it's all over the place.

Sam Cameron:

And my agent gave me a whole spiel before she went on sub the first time. She's like, okay, here's the standard thing. You gotta know, like, this could happen in two weeks, it could happen in two years. Like, there's no, you know, you know, we'll, we'll keep doing as long as we feel like we're gonna do it. But just so you know. Okay, so now that everyone's like, knows a little bit about what you know, the basics of our experience. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the sort of emotional and mind shift transition that went into being an unagented author to having an agent in your process.

Emily:

So I love collaboration. So for me, it was really exciting. I'm trying to. Like I said I was pregnant, so it's all very hazy. I think there was a lot of, like, for me, there was a lot of anxiety mostly around timeline, but also, you know, now you have this other person, you're trying to, like, prove you can meet their expectations. I think there's just. There can be a lot of mindset stuff that goes into it in terms of you having to remember that you are a team, you're working together. It's not like you're working for them. Right. It doesn't. It doesn't work that. It's not. They're not suddenly your boss. Right. It's a. It's a creative vision that you have to work on together. So. So that took a little bit of finagling, like figuring out how to work through what she was thinking the book could be versus what I wanted the book to be and, like, how to take her feedback into consideration with, you know, my vision for the story. It's all. It can be a lot to balance. And so I. It was a mindset question, right? Yeah, yeah, I feel like mindset wise. It was a lot of me gut checking with other writer friends, you know, being like, this is my vision for the story. Does this fit my vision of the story? Just sort of like soundboarding to figure out, to, like, work through that anxiety, that, like, external validation desire to figure out, like, what was best for the story and what was best for my vision of the story, which ultimately is what we were selling. Um, and for the most part, we were pretty aligned. So I don't say that as if to say, like, she had this other vision for my story, but I think in any sort of feedback, there's. There's often the feedback that. There's like the feedback behind the feedback is how I talk about it with my critique partners. It's like, okay, this is what Laura said and here are her suggestions. What's the feedback behind the feedback?

Sam Cameron:

What's really.

Emily:

What's really the problem and what's really not aligning? And then is her solution the best for, you know, fixing that in a way that aligns with my vision, or is there something else to do with it? And oftentimes I needed other brains to help me work through that. Just because my anxiety was all, all up in there.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, I like that idea of the feedback behind the feedback because, you know, so I, I, I think one of the things that can sometimes be a little tricky about any kind of feedback, whether it's feedback from an agent, editor, or feedback from your critique partners, is that I feel like a real, like, really useful feedback frequently asks questions. And I know that's what a lot of coaches like us will do is we'll say, this is how I'm feeling when I read this. But, you know, is this what you meant? Or like, what are you trying to do? Things that will sort of guide a writer towards, towards their vision. But most of the feedback that's being offered is not by trained book coaches who are asking questions. It's by people who are going to give you, who are going to say, this isn't working for me. Here's a prescription description of how I think you should fix it. And I think that you're right, that in terms of aligning with your own vision, there is this need to parse the feedback you're getting and figure out what it's actually saying. So on my most recent revision on my manuscript, my agent and I didn't have a ton of editor feedback to go off of, you know, because most of the rejections were the very nice, like, love this, not gonna buy it, you know, kind of rejection. And then kind of reading between the lines of the other rejections, I sort of realized that it was like, oh, the problem that I think most people are reacting to is that this is this book's kind of on the long side, and there's something off with the pacing. And so then my agents, I had to be like, oh, okay, yeah, we, we can see how what people are saying, like what the editors were saying wasn't necessarily the solution, but that was the problem they were all identifying. And then she and I were able to identify a solution that we both felt good about to that problem that wasn't like an editor who's rejecting something isn't going to come up with a super nuanced, subtle fix. And that's what we needed in that situation.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah, I think that's such a good point, which is that agents are not like when, when you think about what an agent does, there's a very specific skill set you want your agent to have. Right. And it's to go out there and sell your book. And so in terms of editorial skills, I think agents, they just run the gamut in terms of, like, you know, There are some who are really, really good at editing, and there are some who don't love it, you know, and just so they're looking for. For cleaner manuscripts, maybe, or suggesting outside help even. And so, you know, depending on who you sign with and depending on who your agent is, there's their skill sets in terms of the types of feedback they're going to be able to give you might vary. And it's actually true, too, for editors in house, because oftentimes the skill set that they have is to find really good marketable pitches, to work with teams within the publishing house to, like, push your book and to get it sold and all that, right? Those are like social skills. Those are different. And so even editors have varying levels of actual editing skills. And so there is a certain level of, like, you needing to be able to parse through feedback that might not be like. Like you said, like, book coach level, clear and useful feedback as to what is and isn't working. The other thing that that makes me think of is, and when I work with Laura, to my agent, to get something sold, it's a very different approach. Like, she has a very different approach from an editor who's trying to get me a book that's, like, ready for. To go on the shelf. Because those are two very different objectives. And it used to drive me nuts to think about that because I was like, how can those be different? Don't they just want a perfect book that's ready for the shelf? But that's not how they're thinking. Like, what they're thinking when you're working with an agent is they're thinking, how do I sell this to an editor? Right? How do I make it so that the premise is super clear? How do I make it so it feels really pacey, how do I make it so it's, you know, checking all the boxes that an editor is looking for, which aren't necessarily the same boxes that a reader's looking for. And so when Lauren and I were working on behind the Crimson Curtain, we ended up cutting it down. It was like 135, and she wanted it under a hundred. So I got it to under a hundred thousand words, which, like, crazily sped up the pacing. And, you know, the world building, I think, suffered from that. But the point was not the world. The point was to get people to turn pages and, like, get to the end, right? And so we focused on that. And then we also made it really spicy. And both of those things I reversed when I worked with my editor to actually get it on the shelf. Which is like so crazy. Like, like, we started having conversations with my editors and they were like, oh, it's a little too spicy for the market that we want to push it to. Can we pull back on the spice? And we need way more world building and context because. So a lot of this stuff doesn't make any sense. And I'm like, yeah, that's because I cut it down to 100k, but that's what got it sold. Right. So I think there's. You kind of have to be asking yourself, well, who is the person giving me feedback and what are their objectives and what is the objective in the publishing process right now? And how do I filter what I want my vision to be for the story right within that context? Which for me was hard. I was like, I don't want to let go of all this world building and I don't necessarily want it to be quite that spicy, but that's fine. Like, it didn't bother me. I just was like, I don't know if that's right for the audience. And so we ended up, you know, tweaking that when we had audience in mind. Right?

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, yeah. And something else I think is an undercurrent of several of the things you've said is I remember this was a really important revelation for me that I did not have until after. Until I was in between agent number one and agent number two. So when I worked with my first agent, I was very, very young again, just out of college. He was not that much older. He was maybe a couple years older than me. So neither of us really knew that much about what we were doing. Neither of us knew that much about the market and how it worked and how publishing worked. And I think that it's very easy if you are a writer who is pursuing traditional publishing as a pathway. It's very easy to sort of see agents as like the anointers of. You know, that once someone chooses you that you finally have like that external validation of like, I am good enough, I have done enough, you know, and that. That in some ways becomes the goal. And I think what is lost in that, and it's easy to see why you would feel that way if you've been querying, especially for like a long time and somebody finally makes you an offer. And so something that was like, really earth shattering for me was to be reminded that this is a business partnership. You know, it is a business decision, just like whether you traditional hybrid self publish is a business decision. And so one of the things that's going to be important in who you choose to query to when you interview an agent, decide if you're going to work with them, and then once you actually start working with them, is to kind of evaluate is this relationship going to work for me as an artist and as a person who has this business of writing books, is this person helping me to meet my objectives? And then, like you said to remember that they work for you, not the other way around. You know, you're not. You know, you want to impress them because that's so much of what you have to do to get in your foot in the door and, like, get the agent is you, like, are. You have to be kind of impressive or, you know, that's what it feels like. And so then that pressure continues. Like you said, once you have, you know, have the representation, you're like, oh, I want to show you that I'm so good. And, like, I don't want to show you any of, like, my vulnerabilities or, you know, whatever. And so I think then what ends up happening is you can have a situation where writers don't feel like they don't want to bother their agent.

Emily:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

So it's like, okay, my agent has given me an edit letter. I gotta go figure it out by myself.

Emily:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

Personally, that has not been my experience. My agent is very open to, when she gives me an edit letter to have a conversation about or like, when. The most recent round of revisions I did for her, she and I talked a little bit about what we thought the approach was going to be. I reread the manuscript. I came back to her with a list of changes I was thinking about. We had a conversation about it. She made some other suggestions. I did the revisions. She came back with a couple of notes. One of the notes I wasn't really sure what to do about. So we got back on the phone and we talked about it again. And then we had a manuscript we were both happy with.

Emily:

Mm. Yeah, that's. That's pretty close to my experience too. Maybe a little less back and forth. But with. With Laura, it's been very like, she. She'll give me her feedback in writing, and then I usually take a couple of days to, like, process it, like I said earlier with critique partners and stuff, to try to figure out, okay, what do I think the feedback, you know, if it's not clear, what do I think the feedback beneath the feedback is? If I don't like one of her suggestions, like, I come up with another one. And so by the time we get on the phone, I'm like, okay, here's what I think you're saying. Is that what you're saying? And then once we kind of have that conversation, and usually it is, then I'm like, okay, well, here are the solutions that I have. The ones that match what you suggested.

Sam Cameron:

The.

Emily:

The ones that maybe are new to the conversation. And then usually she's kind of like, great, sounds good. Unless there's, you know, I've misinterpreted something that she said. And then we. We do the revisions, and it goes back to her and goes back and forth like that. So, yeah, pretty similar.

Sam Cameron:

So just to kind of, like, recap for the audience as they're following along, you know. So if you are in the audience and you're like, great, I just got my first edit letter. I don't really know what to do with. Sounds like. Both Emily and I have an early step of taking some time to process what the edit letter says. And that processing might be processing by yourself and think, you know, kind of figuring out, you know, what it says and how you feel about it. It might be talking to critique partners and getting them to help you parse the feedback. And it may also include actually talking to your agent, asking for clarity about what it is they've said. And then the next step, I'm thinking, is actually to make a plan. Right. So how do you approach planning out a revision when you've been given an edit letter or some feedback?

Emily:

Yeah. So usually what I'll do is. So before I even get the edit letter, I usually write down all the things that. That, like, I want to do with it. So often I'll reread it or. Or just take notes from when I finished it of things I know that I need to go back and fix. And then. So I'll start with sort of that list of things, and then I'll take. Take the edit letter and, like, break it into pieces. So I'm like, okay, this character needs work in this way. And then I kind of, like, organize it. So I take the pieces of the letter, and I organize it with what I've got. And so I make these, like, big buckets, and then I kind of nest everything. And I'm like, okay, this is this, you know, my main character's arc. And all of this feedback fits under the arc. And so that will include, like, comments and stuff. So if I. If my agent does inline comments. So inside the document, I'll be scrolling through, and on chapter 15, she'll be like, well, here is an issue. And it feels isolated, but I'll nest it under something that it relates to. So I kind of compile everything and usually I end up with not as many buckets as I initially think I'm going to have. Like, when you first read the letter, it can feel like, oh, there's 80 million things that are wrong with this book. But in reality it generally comes back to, okay, there's like these four or five buckets, like three of them might be major that I need to address. And then I'll start to think up solutions from there and I'll come up with broad swath solutions and then I'll start to figure out, okay, in each act, how can I. How could I revise that? And I'll. I'll map it out from there. But I'm a plotter, so that's like

Sam Cameron:

normally how my brain works.

Emily:

But what about you?

Sam Cameron:

How do you tackle it so interestingly, I would not consider myself really a plotter, but I do think similar to you, you prefer revising over drafting, right? Yes, yes, I'm the same way. So caveat to all of you listening. If you're like a drafter at heart and you hate revising, this still might not be helpful. You still might always hate having to revise based on edit letters. But yeah, so the way I approach it, it's not totally dissimilar, but I think I don't usually, I don't necessarily implement the feedback chronologically, like act by act, if that makes sense. So what I kind of end up doing is I'll. And this is actually very similar to what I do when I have beta reader feedback too. And I kind of like compile it together. So I'll look at, okay, here are the trends or the things I need to change, and I will create, like you said, kind of buckets of thematically related or like interrelated things. Before I even get to that point, I kind of have to figure out the fixes, right? So it's like you take some time to process the feedback and part of that I think is figuring out like what the fixes are, like what the changes are. Because I don't know that I can necessarily do the sorting. I might maybe go back and forth. My brain's very non linear, which is why plotting is so hard for me, is that I have to kind of go back and forth between various steps, but I kind of will go back and forth between like, okay, I know that there's this overarching, so I'LL give an example. In my book, there's this pair of siblings that are switching places, and so they get. The whole premise is that they get confused for each other. And so one of the big pieces of feedback that I had was about increasing the hijinks, right. And the chaos of these two people being confused for each other. And then I had this other character whose role in the plot was not super clear and needed to be clarified a little more. And it turned out that solving there was a way to integrate both of those solutions into one chapter from the perspective of the character who's, like, part of the plot needed to be beefed out. And I could show her mistaking these siblings for each other. Right. And some of the chaos of that.

Emily:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

So what I kind of did is I was like, all right, those are the two biggest issues I need to figure out, right? Is, you know, that's going to touch the most chapters. It's going to require the most structural. I guess that's the way I approach is. Is I'll say, okay, what are my structural changes that I got to do? And then I'll kind of, like, work my way towards the smaller things. And so then once I kind of have those buckets, I'll do passes of, like, this is the pass where I'm going to deal with this issue, and I'll kind of go through the manuscript and deal with that issue or that handful of issues that are in that bucket, and I might, like, do small fixes along the way, and that's kind of how I'll work my way towards it. I save cuts for the end. Like, once I'm. At once, I'm happy with all the other changes I've made. Unless it's like, a. Specifically, I'm going through this pass to cut things, or, like, I need to pull things out and restructure, and then I might do that first. So I generally try to make myself do the things that are the biggest and the hardest first and then work my way down towards, like, the smaller issues. On my most recent revision, I actually did just go through chronologically because I needed breaks in between the big, hard things and the smaller. Like, I. And I also. My wife was recovering from surgery, so I was, like, super busy taking care of her. And so it was a way to be like, I have no time for myself, but I can, like, zip through revising some, like, easy chapters during that.

Emily:

Yeah, Yeah. I. That's so interesting. I. So my. I can't do. I can. I understand, like, cognitively, I Understand how layer revisions are useful, but my brain cannot do them. I feel like I sort of do them maybe in the plotting process, where I'll start by plotting out the changes I'm gonna make with the structural stuff and then plot the little stuff. But when I'm actually on the page, my brain. My brain sees, like, all the interconnections between everything. And so it's really hard for me to, like, jump to random spots and try to make changes when, like, I see everything as dominoes. I guess maybe that's a better way to explain it. So I'm like, I make this tiny world building tweak here, and then it could affect everything else, which is potentially likely, partially an anxiety thing. But I do think it helps because I'll. I usually map out more changes than I end up making.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Emily:

Because then I get into the chapters and I find ways to weave. Like, I often will find ways to weave changes together. So I'll do a world building thing change. Like, I'll beef up world building while I'm also introducing a character, while I'm also upping the stakes, right? And, like, I can do all that in one chapter, but I can't see that till I'm in the book. And so for me, it's helpful to go chronologically. So I've kind of lived through the changes and felt the ripple effects of them and can kind of go through the manuscript that way. And then oftentimes, like I said, I'll skip, like, a third of the changes I thought I needed to make. Cause I made it very clear, this world building thing in chapter three, I didn't need to do it six more times, you know, but I had mapped out all the places where I could do it.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. And I think that brings up another really good point. And I have found that too. So similar to drafting, like, you know, when you're drafting how, like, you can abstractly picture the scene or abstractly picture the story, and then you will learn or see so much that you didn't know was gonna happen once you start drafting. I do think it's the same with revising, where you can kind of, like, abstractly have a sense of, like, this is a fix that I think will work. And then once you get into the revising, either realize, like, either think of something better or realize that that fix that you thought of can do something that you didn't realize it could do. And like you said, you end up not making. Not needing to make quite so many changes or that things can kind of do double duty in a way you didn't anticipate.

Emily:

Yeah. Yeah, that's my favorite part. I love that part of revising. It's like piecing it all together and, like, making it. I don't know. I love the. Efficiency is not the right word, but the, like, the craftiness of, like, trying to weave things together and layer things together.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, it is really satisfying. And there's an interesting. Like, I have an interesting mental conundrum whenever I'm revising. So my most recent revision was super illuminating on myself as a. On my process, because that was what made me finally accept that I'm, like, revising more than I like drafting. Cause I always thought that I was neutral about them. Like, I. I sort of thought that I was. I liked whatever part I was not doing right. So, like, whenever I felt like I was drafting, I wanted to be revising. And whenever I was revising, I felt like I wanted to be drafting. But what I realized is that a lot of what I thought was revising for most of my career was, in fact, rewriting, like, a manuscript that had not worked and needed a total page one rewrite, which is not the same thing as revising. That's just drafting. It's just another type of drafting where you, like, know a little bit more. And so then when I, like, truly was in the process of revision, like, taking something that was fully drafted, did not need a page one rewrite, but just needed changes and, you know, things like that, and I realized that I loved doing that. It was like, oh, this is. This is why drafting is so hard for me.

Emily:

Because drafting is not this, but doing it, it didn't realize it.

Sam Cameron:

That's funny. Yeah. So I. But what's interesting is that every time I do a revision and I get closer to, you know, a version of the book, that feels like every version I like a little bit better than the one that came before. And so there's this weird sort of tension of, like, knowing as I'm drafting that I'm probably going to change. And then, like, once I get to revision, it's like, well, why didn't I know this when I drafted it? Like, why couldn't I see this? And, you know, you just can't. Like, that's just not how it works.

Emily:

Yeah, that's the why I hate it. That's why I hate it a hundred percent. I just feel like I'm just making problems for myself in the future, which I am. But there's no other way to do it. And so you just do it, I guess. I don't know.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. When I worked, when I was working with Rachel, there was a thing that Rachel and I would say to each other, which was I would do something and I would talk about past Sam and future Sam. And so when Rachel and I were in the planning phases of the book, I had written like, I don't know, a hundred pages before I started working with her. And then she helped me kind of figure out the rest. And so when I went back and looked at those exploratory pages, I was like, past Sam was such a genius. Like, look at all of these really great ideas that, like, mesh so well with all this character work we've done. And, um, and then when I was drafting, I was like, well, I'm not feeling great about this, but I bet future Sam will know what to do with it. Because future Sam is so smart. Future Sam knows all sorts of stuff.

Emily:

Future Sam will fix everything.

Sam Cameron:

Yes, future Sam will fix everything. So I'm trying to remind myself now that I'm drafting again, that's like, future Sam is really smart. And future Sam is going to really appreciate past Sam for having done this draft.

Emily:

That's what I always tell myself. I'm also working on my fourth. Well, fifth, I guess, but fourth book. And I'm having more fun than I've had before. I do think a lot of that has to do with, like, the complete lack of expectations. Like, I have a book on sub, so, like, I don't need another book on sub for a while. So there's no unless. Like, I sold a two book deal. Oh, please.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Emily:

Then like, there's no, there's no pressure or rush at all. So I do think that lack of, that lack of external pressure has given me a lot of autonomy. That's allowing me to have more fun with it. But. But I do also think a lot of it is that I have seen future Emily fix problems before. And I know that future Emily likes taking really bad scenes when she knows what there actually should be and rewriting them. That's so much fun. So I'm just like giving her a lot to work with. She won't see problems. Yeah, I.

Sam Cameron:

That's another good way to think about it. Because I feel like so much my problem in drafting is that I'm trying to not have to do revisions. It's like, I like revisions. Why am I, like, spending so much more time in the part of the process I don't like to save myself from the part of the process that I do like?

Emily:

Yeah, I feel like. So with the project that's on submission now, last year I was like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna crack that code, right? And I'm just gonna track forward as fast as I can. So I. But really all I did was I just drafted and revised obsessively as fast as I could. So I wrote the draft very fast, but I wasted a lot of energy in the interim, going back and revising and revising and revising. So this time, I'm trying not to do that. I have my first act, and I've not revised. I think I maybe revised, like, the first chapter, so we'll see how long I can keep it up.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, I'm trying really hard.

Emily:

Question, Poll. It's hard. Sometimes I just. I get to a point where I've lost all the threads, and so it's less revising and more like, backtracking to be like, okay, where'd I go off trails and how can I get back on the right direction? Um, and sometimes if I don't do that backtracking, I've. I. I don't know how to go forward because I'm going in the wrong direction. And, like, now that I know that I'm going in the wrong direction, I can't unsee it. So I can't just, like, then, like I said earlier, I have a hard time not, you know, picking dominoes out of the line. And so when I'm drafting, I have to chronologically. It has to, like, at least make sense. I can't just be like, okay, I know I'm gonna go back and make these four changes. I'm just gonna pick up as if I've made those changes. My brain. My brain can't do that. Some people can do that, and I envy them. If you can do that, do it.

Sam Cameron:

But I think I am able to do that, but only if they're, like, kind of subtle changes. And I've had the problem several times of what I call writing the wrong book first, where, like, I will start on an idea and then, like, wildly come up with a new idea that is, like, still the same premise and the same characters, but is, like, completely different. And that completely different idea really is a better idea. But it's like, well, I learned a lot about these characters. This is why I thought for so long I didn't like revising because I considered that shift to be revising. And it's only on the most recent time I did it where I was like, that was not revising. That was a Whole new book, like, related.

Emily:

When does that usually happen for you? Act One.

Sam Cameron:

So it's been a couple of different times. So in the historical novel that I wrote that time, it wasn't quite as dramatic, but basically, I wrote a whole draft and then realized that the middle part was not at all where I wanted to go. And so I kept Act 1 and Act 3 pretty much the same, but rewrote all that too. Got it. And then with one of my fantasy novels, I wrote a whole draft before, and I just did not know enough about storycraft at that point. And so I was like, this doesn't actually hold together at all. And so I did some more thinking and figured out same character, a couple of the same characters, some of the same premise, but very different story. So that was a page one rewrite. And then the book that I worked on with Rachel was a queer sports rom com. But when I originally started writing it, I wrote, like, 200 pages of a gaslamp fantasy based on the same premise that I really hated. And then while I was writing that is when I got. I was like, what if I did this? But with Formula one driver? That's awesome. And that ended up being a much better idea. I really would love if my process did not always involve writing the wrong book first. The current book that I'm working on, I think I wrote an Act One that I realized could not be sold. The premise just wasn't gonna work. And so then I pivoted to another idea where I can use some of what I wrote in that Act 1.

Emily:

Mm.

Sam Cameron:

And so that felt like I got to write the wrong book without writing the whole wrong book. So that was.

Emily:

That's what I do a lot. I happen, like, Act Ones for me. And it's taken me a long time to realize this. Cause I used to get caught in the Act 1 revision cycle, like the perfectionism cycle, which is very different from what I'm about to explain. Um, where that cycle, I was stuck rewriting Act 1 and revising Act 1 obsessively because I was too scared to move forward. Um, but I have realized that part of my process is I have to feel my way into the right story. So for this project that I'm working on right now, I have a finished Act One. But I had already written parts, like, probably, like, two thirds of Act 1, like, two other ways. But both of them, I was like, it's not right. Like, this version's too romantic. I wanted it to be a thriller. It's like the tension's not there. It's not the right focus. So I have to kind of. And the same thing happened for all my previous projects. I just didn't quite recognize it as that because I was. The perfectionism was wrapped up in it. This time I can definitely feel. It's like. I was like, this isn't the right genre. Like, I'm not going in the right direction. The tension's not in the right spot. And if the tension's not in the right spot, how am I supposed to write Act 2? So for me, it feels like Act 2 is the story and Act 1 is how you get there. And if I'm not feeling like I'm getting to the right starting point for act two, I'm like, I generally will start over just to figure out how to get to that right starting point. But once I found it for this time, I was like, I wrote 20k pretty fast. It kind of flowed out of me. And then I reached that Act 2 break and I was like, okay, this is the right break. I have a lot of revising to do for act one, but I'm not gonna revise it because I'm in the right direction now. So I feel like it's. It can feel differently once you untangle some of that stuff.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, I think I'd probably end up rewriting act one a lot more. Not just like, I. I also used to be prone to the, like, I gotta keep rewriting Act One until it's perfect thing. But I also think, similar to you, it's kind of how I'm figuring out what the story is. So in other. In the two books that I have that I think are like, I could self publish them and they'd be readable books. Like, people could, you know, start to finish read them, and they hang together pretty well. In one of them, I had to add a lot to Act One because I had the catalyst too early. And in the other one, I had to cut a lot from Act One because I had. I needed a lot of, like, on ramp for myself to get to know all these characters in this world and this plot that then ended up not really being necessary for the reader later on. So, yeah, I would definitely say that for when I. When I look at my stories, I think that Act 1 tends to get redone the most and restructured the most.

Emily:

It has to do the most work. I mean, it's got to hook the reader, it's got to introduce the characters, it's gotta introduce the plot. Right? Like, there's so much that once you do all that setup, Act 2 and the second half of the story especially, it's just fallout. It's just plot and, like, stuff happening. Right. You don't have to set anything up at that point. So, yeah, I think I rewrite for act ones and first halves way more than anything else.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. So returning to where we started returning to editing. Well, I mean, you know, hopefully people still learned a lot from, oh, it's all related. Yeah, yeah, it's all related. So to, again, just remind everyone where we've been. So you get your edit letter from your agent. Step one is to do some processing and sit with what they said, have your feelings about it. I think that's the other thing is it's okay to still be upset when you get feedback from an agent or an editor. It's okay if it still kind of sucks. I. I've been lucky so far in that I haven't felt like I've gotten any feedback yet from my agent where I was like, this made me sad, and I had to, like, pick myself up. But that's it. It doesn't mean you have a bad agent relationship if sometimes you feel sad when you get feedback. Yeah, that's normal.

Emily:

Usually for me, it's just, like, anxiety, but I learned to expect it. So, like, I remember vividly I got an edit letter from. I think it was my editor for Crimson or Molten, probably both times. And I just forwarded it immediately to my remarkable. Without reading it, which is like, if nobody knows, it's like a writing tablet kind of thing. And then I waited until I had, like. Until a moment when I knew I had time and, like, space and felt calm. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna, like, overrun or whatever. Um, and then I sat on my porch and I read through it, and I just took notes on it. And then I had scheduled time afterwards to process it. So I just, like, went for, like. I had scheduled time to go for a walk after I read it. Um, so that helps me, like, manage that anxiety piece of it.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Emily:

Like you. I can't think. The only time I really got, like, I don't even know if sad was the. Would be the right word. Maybe frustrated was when Rachel gave me feedback. No, no, she did. Rachel. She. She helped me understand. Basically. For this last project, I had hired a developmental editor. My agent had given me feedback, and then I had gotten a couple of beta reads. And then I asked Rachel to read it. She was, like, the last one to read it. And then she gave me feedback. No, she wasn't the last one. She was the second to last one. She gave me feedback and I was like, okay. And then this last person gave me feedback, and I was like, wait, I didn't address that. Like, I. Like, it was just this note that I had felt like I. Like everybody else had given me it and I thought I had fixed it. And so that was more of like, a frustration of like, it's still not fixed. And so Rachel had read that version, and so I was. Reached out to her and I was like, is this still true? And she was like, yeah, kind of. So we. So we talked some solutions which ended up working out really well. But it was just one of those, like, sometimes eight people will give you the same piece of feedback and you just can't see it until it clicks. I don't know. It's just one of the inevitabilities.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. But I do think building in time in your process to have your feelings about your feedback is important, you know, because I. I mean, people talk about, like, the whole thick skin thing and. And I. You gotta have your feelings. You gotta let yourself have them. It's not wrong.

Emily:

You have to process them.

Sam Cameron:

You have to process them. So I think it's really helpful, whether it's feedback from an agent, an editor, a book coach, a critique partner, a beta reader, whoever it is, to just kind of, like, let yourself have your feelings, whether that's on a run in your journal.

Emily:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

Yelling to your spouse and complaining to your spouse, which I do sometimes about feedback that I find annoying. You do need. I know that for myself, like, I need time to have my feelings before I can do. See the feedback behind the feedback that we were talking about. Yeah. Because if I haven't had a chance to feel my feelings and, like, defend myself, that's the other thing is in critique groups, we're told not to defend ourselves, but I actually, like, need a chance to defend myself, to feel like I can protect myself before I can actually process the feedback in a meaningful, helpful way.

Emily:

Yes, a hundred percent. I use my alpha reader for that. She's like the first person. Usually we have a relationship where we forward each other notes before the other person reads them. So, like, if I. So before I forwarded to my remarkable. I also forwarded it to her. And I was like, got notes. And so she's kind of reading it as I'm reading it. So then as soon as I'm done reading it, I can call her. She's just, like, on board, you know, and that's what I Do the venting, the defending. And then she kind of will talk me down and be like, okay, what is the feedback behind the feedback? And how do we address this? But she kind of lives in my brain, so, yeah, that privilege of a relationship. But I do think processing, like with Rachel, when she had read the same version that the other person had read, when it finally clicked in my brain. So I was able to call her and be like, I'm panicking. Like, I thought I addressed this help. And she was able to help me, like, process, like, what still wasn't working and possible solutions for it. Which I just think when you try to do that by yourself, it can just be really hard. I would really recommend finding other. Pairing up with other writer friends, especially ones who are also agented who understand that process. If you can find those folks, I think can be really helpful for just to help you process stuff, because it's really hard to see things clearly when your emotions are up in the way.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. And honestly, though, the friend who asked this question that started this whole thing, that's kind of what she did. Is she. You know, she had some time with her edit letter, and then when she initially was like, I don't know what to do with this, she actually brought the edit letter to our critique group meeting so we could all look at it. And, you know, we had all read. You know, I don't remember if everyone had read her whole book or. But we'd all. We all knew it.

Emily:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

And so we were able to help one. We were able to help her kind of, like, process a little bit of how she was feeling, but also then to help her figure out, she's like, here's this thing that, you know, my agent pointed out. I think she's right. I don't know how to fix it. Right. So then we could, like, brainstorm together as a critique group, you know, some ideas to help her out. And there's a prompt that I give some of my clients when they're working with critique partners. That's like a journal prompt. And it's sort of like, the first part is feel your feelings bad, good and bad. Feel your feelings. Right. And the second part is to, like, identify the feedback that you found useful or, like, think you want to do something with and the feedback you're going to ignore, which is a little. A little more tricky with an agent. We can talk about that in a second.

Emily:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

And then the last part is like, okay, so now I will. And I have people write, you know, which are the things they're going to do something with now and what are they going to do something with later? Because sometimes you get feedback from a critique partner and it's like, okay, I'm not at that part yet of the process, so I'm going to save this idea for later. So with an agent or an editor, I think those last two pieces are a little different because when you get the edit letter, the expectation is you're doing it now and you don't have to do everything that your agent or your editor says. Have you had any experiences where you've kind of pushed back on something that you were.

Emily:

Yeah, actually. So. So when I wrote the first draft of this project that's on submission now, I sent it to my agent and she came back with a bunch of feedback that just didn't feel right. And it's not that it was bad feedback. What I ended up sort of processing was that I had to. I didn't know what genre I was writing, so. So she was confused. I probably should not do, like, full transparency. Probably should not have sent her that draft. I probably should have spent more time on it before I sent it to her. But that aside, she gave me all this great feedback, but I was like, she doesn't see my vision at all. But it's because she was looking at the book from a different genre lens. And so I had to do a lot of. I sort of made a lot of time between our calls so that I could sit down with the alpha reader that half lives in my brain. And we sort of like, brain together about what is the genre? What do I want to do? Like, what is the. What am I going to pull the tension through? Because basically the feedback she had given me would make it more of a romance and more of a romantasy by pulling the romance and the emotions to the forefront of the book. Whereas what I wanted to do was make it a thriller. But I didn't have enough thriller teeth. Like, I didn't have enough bodies. I didn't have enough scary stuff. Like, I didn't have the tension to pull the pages. So basically when we sat down on the phone, which I know we said this earlier, but, like, you should always talk on the phone because it's like the way things come out in written form is not always the way that. Yeah, they emotionally are. Like, the emotions don't translate. Like, how strongly your editor feels about a note doesn't translate. Right. So we got on the phone and I basically started the conversation being like, look, this is what I want. I Figured out this is what I want to do with the story. Here's what I'm thinking. Does your feedback still fit in that? Or like, do you agree that if I go this direction, then I won't do X, Y, Z and I'll do, you know, ABC instead? And she was like, oh, I see now. I see what, what you're trying to do, what you want to do. And basically we were able to brainstorm some paths forward together. So I do think it takes a little bit of like. And I've stedded you can stet comments, which is basically when you write especially inline comments, if somebody wants to make a change to a paragraph and you don't like it, you can just write stet S, T, E T. And they're, they aren't supposed to be able to question you on it. Like, they just accept it. But for that bigger picture stuff, I think with agents and editors, it's important to sort of think through why, why not? And which is just a good practice anyway because it helps you get clearer on what your vision for the story is. And so you can kind of think, okay, why not this note. What am I going to do instead? Or, you know, what's my reasoning and how can I fix the feedback beneath the feedback and then have a conversation about it? Like, they're not sending you a letter expecting you to do everything to a T. And like, yeah, never question it. Like, that's, that's not how a creative collaboration should work. So any agent or editor worth their salt is going to be willing to have that conversation and like, discuss with you other potential solutions.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, and I liked your piece of advice about getting on the phone as opposed to just like emailing each other back and forth. Because tone is so hard to convey in email that you're like, what feels to you as the writer when you're reading it as like, very negative will probably feel a lot nicer when you're like, can hear the person's voice and you know, are hearing what they're saying. And then also there's just a lot more room for like, back and forth and like, well, what about this? And like bouncing ideas off of each other. That's a lot harder to do in writing.

Emily:

Yeah. And it's easier too to get to the feedback behind the feedback. So if the feedback behind the feedback isn't clear, you can always ask, like, why did you make that suggestion? Or why do you think that's a problem? And usually once they start to explain it, you can start to see, oh, okay, this is what this. It's a pacing issue or it's a character issue or something like that. And then you can think of other ways to fix it if you don't agree with whatever their solution is.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. Okay, so we got. We got time to process feedback, figure out what we're going to do, have a conversation with your agent at any point through the process, if you have questions, want help, all that Emily and I both talked about, you know, that we kind of approach. We both have very different methods of approaching, but basically we both have sort of a tiered approach of like, here are the buckets of, you know, the. The themes of the changes I need to make. Here's how I'm going to do it. Now I'm going to do it. How do you decide when it is time to send something back to your agent or editor?

Emily:

Well, usually there's some kind of timeline. Um, so that is part of it. It's sort of like a. There's a lot of factors, right? There's the timing factor. They want it back at a certain time. Obviously you can always extend deadlines if you need to. But usually, you know, I'm kind of focused using that as a. As a guidepost. And then in terms of the actual revisions themselves, I usually just get to a point where I'm sick of it. So I try to make sure that I've addressed all the things that I wrote down and then usually I'll read it through one more time. Because I'm an obsessive copy editor, line copy editor. Like, I can move words around all the. All day long. So usually by the time I get to that point, I give myself one pass through the book to do that. And then if there's like one or two spots that I'm unsure about based on the feedback, you know, I might go back and spot edit those. But at a certain point, you just gotta let it go. So that's that last sort of line edit, copy, edit, pass is usually me convincing myself it's a. It's a good cohesive book because when you're revising, it feels very Frankenstein y and it can feel very. Like everything's all over the place. So that final read helps me kind of feel the flow of it, accept that it's good, accept that it's cohesive, and then I just have to let it go. So usually I kind of time it. So that happens around the time when it's due back. But sometimes that doesn't happen.

Sam Cameron:

I actually really like external deadlines. I find Them really helpful. So the first revision pass that I did after signing with my agent initially, she gave me the notes and didn't give me any sort of deadline because it didn't really matter. There was no time pressure. And I basically said to her, I was like, I find deadlines helpful. Can you give me one? Even though I know it's arbitrary, can you just give me one? And she's like, sure, let's try a month. And I actually didn't think I was gonna make them that. Cause it happened to overlap with the last month of school, and I was still teaching. And then as soon as school was over, so I, like, I emailed her a week before our sort of quote unquote due date that she had set. And I said, you know, hey, I'm pretty close. I've made a lot of progress, but I don't think I'm gonna be done. You know, when I originally said, because school's been busier than I thought it would be and whatever, I was like, yeah, that's fine. Because again, it was totally arbitrary to begin with.

Emily:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

Just giving me a deadline because I asked for one. And then as soon as school got out, I finished everything within that week, and I got it back to her exactly when I originally said I was going to.

Emily:

I find. Oh, go ahead, go ahead. I just find that that's so common for revisions, especially, because so much of the setup, like we said earlier, happens in the first half of the book. And I find that revisions for the second half go way faster, even if they're big, because you're. It's. It's implementation. It's not set up.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Emily:

But then also, I find it's really hard to set the story down. Like, there's a. You know, there's that anxiety of I have to get it done. But I also find, like, my brain, when I'm revising and I'm holding that whole story in my head, it's like, all I can think about and all I could want to do. And so even even though I know I can slow down, and even though I know I can, like, take my time, like, my brain doesn't want to because it's like, it's holding up this story, and it just wants to set it down. And so, like, for me, I'll do the same thing. I'm like, I. At the midpoint, I'm like this. It took me four weeks to get here. I'm definitely gonna need another four weeks to get the second half done. And then two weeks later, it's like, oh, I'm done early.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. Yeah. And I. I've had that same exact thing where revising is when, like, when I'm drafting, if I work for two hours, like, that's impressive. You know, it's an endurance feat. That's. That. That's a lot. And then, like, I could revise eight hours a day, every day. Like, I. Yeah, I just get so sucked into it and so absorbed in it that I just. I won't come up for air. And I just want to, like, you know, keep working. Especially once we get to that last phase, you know, like you said, the copy editing kind of, you know, wording, phrasing phase. I can just, like, sink into that forever. So I do find that by the time I get to the end, I definitely need a break because I have kind of. My wife misses me. And also, like, I've pushed myself.

Emily:

Like, you've been holding a whole book up in your brain for however many weeks.

Sam Cameron:

And then, like you said, I'm also frequently kind of tired of, like, I'm ready to do something else. You know, I'm excited to. As much as I hate drafting, you know, I want to start the new project. Yeah. And the other sort of metric I have for myself is that there's usually still something that doesn't feel quite right whenever I send a story back. But it's like, if I've gotten to a place where one, no one has told me the thing that I'm thinking about is actually an issue.

Emily:

Yeah.

Sam Cameron:

And two, if I don't actually know how I would fix it, then that's the point where I'm like, okay, that may be an issue, but I'm going to wait until a new. Another pass where either someone tells me that it's a problem, or I figure out how to fix it.

Emily:

Yeah, that's really good advice. I have a tendency to do that, too. And I think that that is especially. I find people run into that when they are working with publisher, edit, like, at a publishing house with their editors, because at that point, you're just trying to get the book ready for the audience. And so there's like, infinite changes you could make, right?

Sam Cameron:

Yeah.

Emily:

And it's finite. It's final. And oftentimes authors will suddenly come up with like, a thousand things they want to change about the book, but the editor only names, like, four of them,

Sam Cameron:

and they're like, yeah, what about this

Emily:

and what about that? And it's not a thorough editor. And it's like, no one's Going to care about your book as much as you do, but you can still make those changes. Like, yeah, your book's going out in the world. It's your project. Like, if you still have a list of 15 other things your editor didn't mention that you want to change, like, you can do that.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, it's your book.

Emily:

I've been there, I've done that. I've talked a lot of authors down from that. That fear of, like, oh, I'm going to change something and the editor's gonna be mad. It's like, no, they're not. It's your book. They're not gonna be mad.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. And if you did change something that then they were like, actually, no, we didn't want you to change this.

Emily:

They'll tell you.

Sam Cameron:

Then you'll have. You'll have a conversation with them about whether the change stays or not. Yeah, totally. And also the other thing I keep trying to remind myself of is even though I'm a very critical reader in the sense that, you know, I read as a writer, I read as an editor, so I'm, you know, I'm always thinking about, like, oh, what did the author do? And, like, how did they do this? Or whatever, like, by and large, if I read a book, I'm like, cool, this was enjoyable. I've read this book. I'm like, I know that the author probably has, like, things that felt really horrible to them still, or, like, that they were really unhappy with. Or on the flip side, like, I'll read a book that was like, yeah, like, this particular thing was not great. Like, it wasn't perfect there. You know, I had this note or this critique about this book. Still a published book. Still holds together, you know, Perfect.

Emily:

Still enjoyed it.

Sam Cameron:

Still enjoyed it.

Emily:

Still pay for it. Yeah, yeah.

Sam Cameron:

And so that gives me a lot of comfort as a writer when I. When I'm like on those. Those. Those things where it's like, okay, I've done all the things I've been asked to do. I still think there's this other thing that I'm a little worried about. But, one, I don't know how to fix it, so what's the point in harping on it? And two, nobody else has told me at this point that they want me to do anything about it.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good advice. Gotta let it go. At some point, you just have to let it go.

Sam Cameron:

You do. Yeah. You do have to just let it go. So. And it's also good to have something that you're looking Forward to, I think when you're done revising, whether that's a new writing project or I know that you're a big fan of, you know, taking time off to just like, I'm not going to write. I'm going to read and watch TV and go to the theater and, you know, refill the. Well, so if you have something like that. Yeah, yeah. So something like that, where you are saying to yourself, when I submit this to my agent or my editor, I get to go do X, then you kind of have this incentive of like, all right, let's just let it go and get it done so that I can go, you know, do. Do that thing I've promised myself I get to do when I'm done revising.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah, that's great advice. Gotta give yourself a little carrot to work towards.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. Yep. Um, and then you'll do the process all over again the next time.

Emily:

Do it all over again. Yep. First day after deadline, I cleaned my whole house. And then after that, I usually start thinking about whatever's next and forcing myself not to do it yet till I've had a few weeks of rest.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, I. I need to get better at doing that, taking. Taking some breaks.

Emily:

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard. It's an active process. I have to make myself do it.

Sam Cameron:

So this has been a really wonderful conversation. I appreciate you coming. And hopefully, whether people are working with an agent or not, they will have learned some interesting, useful stuff. Do you have any parting thoughts on editing with agent or editor feedback?

Emily:

Just maybe. Just remember that it's your vision. Just. Just a reminder. It's your vision. They work for you. It's your book. You get the final call, and that is expected. It's like, not weird of you to want to do that if there's something you don't want to do. So just in giving you the permission to know that, because I think a lot of that just gets. There's a weird power imbalance or it can feel like there's a power imbalance that shouldn't.

Sam Cameron:

Slash.

Emily:

Doesn't exist. And so just remembering that it's your project and your voice and your. Your choice, I think is really important.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah. You're the CEO of your book.

Emily:

Yes, you are.

Sam Cameron:

Or the president or the queen or whatever title you want to give yourself.

Emily:

Anoint yourself with whatever title.

Sam Cameron:

Yes, whatever. That. That, you know, top of the hierarchy is. That is you for the book. So. Thank you so much. Emily, if people want to read your books, learn about your work as a coach, and editor. Where can they find you?

Emily:

So my books are published under EB Golden. So my website is ebgoldenbooks.com and then you can find all my coaching stuff@goldenmayediting.com that's probably the two easiest places I'm not really on. I have a social media page, EB Goldenbooks. I am on hiatus at the moment for the what's the foreseeable? Looking for foreseeable. I was like unforeseen future. Like that's not right. Foreseeable future.

Sam Cameron:

We're professional wordsmiths. Everyone.

Emily:

Thank you so much for having me. This has been really, really fun.

Sam Cameron:

Yeah, me too. And thanks everybody for listening. Bye.

Emily:

If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list. Sign now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night. Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.