{addthis off}When you work with books and authors, it's easy to get caught up in wanting great things to happen for the works you've been involved with.

Angel, the first novel by Mary Kingsley falls into that category.  The Editorial Department, specifically founder Renni Browne and editor Shannon Roberts, were happy to be part of the creative process that resulted in Kingsley's novel, but part of the satisfaction that comes with being part of something of artistic value (Renni described the book as "the kind of story that takes you over completely and stays with you long after you finish the last page", for example) is making sure it reaches an audience, which can often be just as challenging as writing the book in the first place.  We live with the story, watching it evolve to the final product and finding an agent, then a publisher, who shares the vision, who, with a quick glimpse, sees what we see, can be a tough road to travel.  So, when an A-list agent (Mel Berger at William Morris Endeavor) chose to represent Mary and Angel, we couldn't have been happier.

I mentioned a plane named Betty in my first post, which is not exactly accurate. What Betty is as a vintage Grumman Widgeon, a seaplane of sorts with the rather cumbersome moniker of 'flyingboat'.   And at one point in the not too distant past, Betty was one of our editor's favorite characters in a suspense novel about a pilot who lives in Key West and uses his beloved flyingboat to help the island's local when they get into trouble. (For a fee of course, as our hero is in a bit of a financial pickle as the book starts.)

One problem here was that the plane, at least at one point, may well have actually  been more interesting and likable than its pilot. (That might sound crazy but in the hands of this capable writer and his passion for aviation, Betty really came alive on the page in a way that's hard to describe but just sort of irresistible.) The problem is that the pilot is the star of the book and projected series, and here Betty was stealing his thunder. The author got revenge by planning a planecrash in book # 2, but there was  clearly a challenge to be dealt with in book #1. What we had was a character who for all his laid-back charm (this book is set in Key West, mind you) and shadowy past wasn't quite compelling enough to come across as deserving his own series.  At least that was the perception, and I don't think it was without merit.

I often like to joke about how publishing moves in geologic time.  That may feel like the case sometimes but the reality is that the time it takes to get a completed manuscript represented, contracted for publication, and then actually released usually pales in comparison to the time it takes to get from book idea to rough draft, through whatever numbers of rewrites are needed, to a final draft that's really ready for the eyes of agents and publishers in the first place.

What's frustrating for writers is that the process is so seldom a liner one.  As editors and manuscript consultants, part of our is to streamline the creative process and help writers avoid false starts,  blind allies, and getting painted into some corner you can't get out of.  But we cannot, in our effort to do this, discourage some trial and error along the way and the value of experimenting with an approach that  may or may not ultimately work for the manuscript in question. If I've learned anything in my 15 years of helping good manuscripts become good books, it's that there's no single right way to do anything. There are  lots of valuable principles to help editors give sound advice and writers make good decisions, sure, but sometimes you just have to try something and see the result on the page and then maybe try something else.