So, I had another meeting with my editor last night. Seems my beautiful book was putting us over budget, so we needed to cut about 8-10 pages. Ouch.
She suggested removing 3 pieces that took 4 pages. Then we doubled up more poems (cutting an additional 3). But I couldn’t bare to pull one of the 3 she suggested, so that meant we’d only cut 2 poems (and 2 pages). I suggested another page for cutting, so we were back down to 7 cut, still not enough. And then I couldn’t handle one of the pairings she’d suggested — it was too crowded. So we were back up to 6 cut. So we moved the pub credits to the end of the TOC, the acknowledgments to my bio page, and my “Disclaimer” poem to the Editor’s Notes page.
Ick.
Anne is going to make a mock up with our changes and we’ll go from there. I’m afraid that it’s far too crowded. So I’m still trying to figure which poem(s) I can stand to pull.
The comfort is in knowing I’m only pulling them from this manuscript, not throwing them out or something like that. I can still publish them later or send them to journals in the mean time. It’s just hard. Especially since the collection really is very tight as it stands. I feel like I’m playing Jenga and any piece I pull has the potential to make the collection collapse.
Still, what a learning experience!
In other news, I think we’ve decided on the stock for the cover. It’s a bright yellow, brighter than I thought I’d like, but the black tones it down lots. (Yes, the cover is black/grayscale on yellow.)
And I still have to write my frickin bio and acknowledgments.
But it’s all good.