Plodding away on the book..

It's another snow day (4 in two weeks!) and in between shoveling and making snowmen (armies of snowmen to be precise), I'm trying to finish up the final edit of the book.. these photos are from a few weeks ago.. I will trudge up to the frames today, but the tunnels are almost completely buried at this point!

Writing a book is all new to me and it's such an interesting process. You nail down a proposal, it goes to the publisher where it goes through a number of channels for approval. You tighten up your proposal to more finely focus your ideas. It is approved (with any luck!). You start writing. Photo shoot. And write. Photo shoot. And write. Photo shoot. Finally, a year later you hand in your manuscript. You've got about a month before you start getting back edits from your editor. In this brief amount of time, your work has been transformed into the skeleton of a book. At this point, you can see shadows of the finished product - sections rearranged to make more more sense, better flow to the text, titles to each section, etc. But, you're not done! Final photo shoot. The manuscript goes further down the line to the copy editor. Back to your editor. Back to you. This is where I am now.. re-reading the entire manuscript, which has evolved from the original product into the 'almost' final product in terms of writing. I'm checking maturity dates and adding a few more varieties to my lists of 'Niki's Picks'. As I'm doing this, the magical art director and her team have started on the layout and work to add photos, illustrations and bring my garden designs to life. Amazing.. soon, I should have some pages to view and then in another month or two (I hope) the cover will be approved!! Finally, in December the book will emerge - a process that took 2 1/2 times as long as actually having a baby! :)

Yet, it's been so much fun. I've met amazing gardeners, traveling all around this wonderful province. I've teamed up with my lifelong favourite publisher, which publishes some of my favourite authors - Barbara Pleasant, Barbara Ellis, etc. (Seeing as my name isn't Barbara, I'm surprised they approved my manuscript!)

Now, if only we could do something about all this snow.. ??

Happy Gardening!