I am happy to announce that my editor (i.e. my mother) has returned the latest draft of Chasing Nonconformity back to me, full of comments and ready for revisions! Upon going through said comments, I found some of them quite amusing, and thought I might share them with you here today. This is part 2 of the images, so be sure to check out part 1 to see the first half of her excellent and insightful commentary. Also make sure to check out the caption on each photo for context.
Without further ado …
[SPOILER ALERT] The following images contain snippets of text from the Chasing Nonconformity manuscript. Don’t scroll down if you don’t like spoilers!
Random scribbles at the bottom of the page. No idea what they mean. Very mysterious.
Mother misinterprets the verb “snap”.
Mother gets sassy.
Mother questions my protagonist’s hygiene.
… I have no idea.
Mother makes fun of my inability to keep people’s heights consistent.
More mysterious, scribbled-out numbers.
Inscription on the last page of the manuscript. Approved!
Michelle Proulx - Author 
Looks like editing is as big an adventure as writing the first draft.
Even more of an adventure, I’d say — writing the first draft is just you, the computer, and the story. Once you bring other people into it, things get … messy.
Like cooking a buffet and then a food fight breaks out.
In the first image — The times reflect time she spent reading your manuscript. The numbers on the right reflect her calculations regarding how much time she spends on each page. Either that or there are things in your story that she was confirming for accuracy — i.e., amount of time it takes to do something. I opt for the first idea, but am not sure why she’s tallying the minutes per page — unless she plans on sending you an invoice for her time. 🙂
Love the last image. Congrats! I like that she gets a little snarky and sassy with her notes. Provides a bit of a respite from the seriousness of the thing, you know.
Time spent reading the manuscript … could be! Although why she would be calculating that, I don’t know. Maybe it’s for her own personal records. Maybe she keeps a journal about me, and one day she’s going to come visit and slap me with a several hundred thousand dollar bill for all the time she’s spent helping me over the years. LOL
Yep. Better start selling more books.
It says a lot for your relationship that you and your mother can work so well together as an editorial team. The first image made me think she was calculating how long it would take to read aloud as a performance – live, on radio etc Has she got great plans for your novel?
The truth actually turns out to be much more hilarious. So I told her that she wasn’t allowed to go to our friend’s wedding until she finished editing the book (obviously not a real threat — I don’t control what she does! — I was just trying to encourage her to get a move on with the editing, lol). So those calculations are her trying to figure out how long it would take her to finish editing the book at the pace she was going, and therefore whether or not she’d be able to attend the wedding. All in good fun, of course — and she did finish the edits before the wedding, so we both won!
Good for you! If you ask me, you’re way too lenient with her. Pull in those reins, girl! Ah, today’s reckless parents, with their Hawaiian escapes and their Pina Coladas…
The next time she tries to go on a vacation, I should yank the tickets out of her hand, order her back to her office, and go in her place. That would teach her. That would teach her GOOD.
And no ice cream for a week! Or pina coladas!
interesting