New Release from the Writer and the Editor @NanReinhardt

I'm so happy to have dear friend, travel partner, copy editor extraordinaire, and Tule Publishing author on the Window today. She has a new book out--as of yesterday!--which she wants us to know about, and she's also talking about her two jobs. 

Writer as Editor… Or Is It Editor as Writer?

I am a writer—an author. I’m also an editor. If you think those two things seem like a perfectly reasonable pairing, you’d be right on some levels and wrong on others.

Writer Nan and Editor Nan generally get along okay. We mostly stay out of each other’s way when we are supposed to. For example, Writer Nan doesn’t try to rewrite clients’ books as she copy edits, she merely copy edits, even if the urge to rewrite is sometimes strong. Rewriting is not Editor Nan’s job—ever. If the urge gets too strong, Writer Nan might disguise herself as Editor Nan and leave a comment in the manuscript, Something to the effect of “Maybe try…” with a suggestion for a better way to say whatever is clanging for her. Then it’s the author’s call if they want to rewrite.

Editor Nan (from now on, let’s refer to her as EN), on the other hand, is not nearly so polite or circumspect. She charges into Writer Nan’s territory at the drop of the proverbial hat, stopping Writer Nan (whom we’ll call WN from here out) in the middle of sentence if she feels the need and rushes in to fix whatever she thinks isn’t working. Most of the time, WN can keep EN at bay, but she does sometimes get in the way and makes writing much harder than it needs to be.

Here’s the thing that EN just doesn’t get—WN is on a deadline and the time for editing one’s own work is not while one is in the actual process of writing. Editing comes after the first draft is done, and unless a plot point changes backstory dramatically, most anything can be fixed later. WN can even stick a little comment into the manuscript—just a quick CHANGE MADDIE’S HAIR COLOR or RETHINK JACK’S DECISION HERE. Easy peasy, right? EN doesn’t need to be involved at all. But she insists on taking WN all the way back to wherever a switch-up needs to be made and together, they make it and then EN allows WN to move on with the story.

In writing her last few books, WN has been pretty much trying to ignore EN, even when she’s shouting at the top of her editorial lungs. WN has been picking up from where she left off the day before and continuing her writing. Not going back to reread what she’s already written, but rather simply taking up the story and moving it along. It hasn’t been easy, but it has worked pretty well for the storytelling, and WN is hoping she can continue to tell the first draft of her stories without any interference from EN. We shall see…

Thanks for spending time with me today, and thanks to Liz for having me here at the Window. I’ve got a little giveaway package—a backlist book, a handmade bracelet, a River’s Edge map notebook, and some other swag—for one lucky commenter. I had a little hard time coming up with a question for you because not too many of you will suffer my EN vs WN dilemma, so let’s just have some fun. For a chance at this fabulous (cough, cough) giveaway: What was your favorite book when you were kid?

 Home to River’s Edge, book 1 in the Weaver Sisters trilogy
by Nan Reinhardt

 She’s determined to start a new chapter, so why is she still drawn to a man from her past?

When Jasmine Weaver, the chief of staff to a powerful D.C. congresswoman, chose integrity, she didn’t anticipate ringing in the New Year disgraced, unemployed, and sleeping in her childhood bedroom. Now back in River’s Edge, Indiana, identical triplet Jazz has her sisters’ support while she plans her next steps. She agrees to lead the committee for their high school's fifteenth reunion, never dreaming that her co-chair is the man who broke her teenage heart.

As the new CEO of Walker Construction, Elias Walker has taken the family business to new levels of success. He’s buried himself in work to ease the grief of losing his fiancé several years earlier and wants nothing more than to be a carpenter again. He grudgingly agrees to co-chair the high school’s reunion committee, but when Jazz Weaver blows into town, suddenly anything seems possible.

These high school sweethearts have lived half their lives apart. Can they reinvent themselves back in the town where it all began?

Buy Links:

Amazon | B&N Nook | Kobo | Apple Books | Tule Bookstore

Nan Reinhardt is a USA Today bestselling author of sweet, small-town romantic fiction for Tule Publishing. Her day job is working as a freelance copyeditor and proofreader, however, writing is Nan’s first and most enduring passion. She can’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t writing—she wrote her first romance novel at the age of ten and is still writing, but now from the viewpoint of a wiser, slightly rumpled, woman in her prime. She’s a mom to beloved Son and DIL, and a grandmother to darling Grandboy. Nan lives in the Midwest with her husband of nearly 50 years, where they split their time between a house in the city and a cottage on a lake.

Talk to Nan at: nan@nanreinhardt.com

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Tule Publishing | BookBub | Goodreads