The proofs for my upcoming book, Legendary Locals of the Long Beach Peninsula, arrived yesterday via e-mail – 127 pages of text and photographs “ready” for publication.  This is the first time I’ve seen the layout or read the editor’s adjustments to my text.  I am to return the proofs (corrected in red ballpoint pen) so that they arrive in Massachusetts on Tuesday.

This is the part of the book-writing process that I hate most.  First, there is the time thing which, they say is crucial to maintaining our production and marketing schedule – like authors don’t have a life.  And, like overnight mail is something we can easily accomplish here in the wilds of Oysterville. Plus, they have had my manuscript since November 1^st and I get five working days to get it back to them?

The text, of course, has been edited to conform to the publisher’s style – the capitals, the punctuation, the abbreviations for titles (always Capt. So-and-So, never Captain spelled out…).  I am grateful for that part.  I’ve long ago gone on record as saying commas are not my friends.  If the editing process stopped there, all would be hunky dory.  But it doesn’t so it isn’t.

Accompanying the proofs is a list of several dozen questions/comments that I am to take care of by adjusting the text.  Big on the list are regional expressions.  For instance —The word “sandspit” does not appear in our house dictionary. Please consider providing a brief definition.

Yet, the caption under the map provided by me (with directions that it be used at the beginning of the Introduction) says:

The Long Beach Peninsula is
essentially a 28-mile-long sandspit.
It has built up over the last 10,000
years from the sands continuously
washed down the Columbia River
and pushed northward during
winter storms. (Paul Staub map.)

I may be thick, but I really think that is explanation enough.  Never mind that they have arbitrarily moved the map to another page so it doesn’t show up until after the reader might need to know.

They also question the meaning of the word “Weatherbeach” (a term which I have actually used before in books for this same publisher) and they ask me to explain (but not using more words than I was originally allotted) what I mean when I say “the fish traps sanded in.”  To say that my frustration level is at its maximum is the understatement of the decade.

Worst of all, they have eliminated  the quoted material from fisher and logger poets and from a local songwriter –  poetry and verse don’t fit their style and cannot be included.  Okay.  But, had I known that at ANY time during the writing process which began a year ago, I could have worked around it.  Now… not so much.

Today I have several necessary appointments; tomorrow and Friday Nyel will be in the hospital for a “procedure” on his heart.  That leaves Saturday and Sunday for this process of correcting the proofs.  I’m told by the post office folks that if I get the completed package to Astoria by noon Monday, it will arrive at its destination the next day.  Occasionally I care.

 P.S.  Aside from all these insider frustrations, the book looks terrific!  I think I’m going to love it when this birthing process is over.  More importantly, I think readers will love it, too.   “The week of April 29th” is the projected publication date, at least right now.