Interesting question from Jennifer:

"You talk about this editor being your lens... What about a first novel? How much editorial advice did you get when you first started? I'm sure, as with anything else, there are a dozen variables for people just starting, but I was wondering about your first manuscript. How much revision did you need to do? Is it more now or was it more then?"

In my case, no editor sees my work until it's done. Some writers will show the work to their editors or agents as it goes along, but I'm not one. So in that sense the editorial process was the same for my first book: I wrote it, then -- after I found an agent, who sold it to a publisher -- the editor who bought it made suggestions and revisions, and I rewrote in response to those I considered valid. I did more, deeper work on ABSENT FRIENDS than on any book before, but that's partly because this one has more literary and emotional ambition than my others, so the editor had more to work with. She also, I think, works more deeply in a book than my former editor did.

One big caveat: When I say no editor sees my work, I don't mean nobody sees it at all. I'm in a writers' group, have been for 12 years. The huge difference: an editor is, presumably, a trained reader with a critical eye, in some ways a mentor to a writer. Writing group members, on the other hand, are your peers. We bring in work, read aloud, and critique. In my group we trust each other not to say 1)That's great, you're a genius, the world is waiting for this book; or 2)That stinks. Criticism is of the "The dinner scene seems flat to me," or "If he hates her why is he nice to her?" variety. Each of my books has benefitted from the group's critique on its early chapters. (I write faster than we can read -- we meet bi-weekly -- so I'm done by the time we're up to the middle, and I stop reading then, because the ms. goes off to my editor.) The group helps me focus -- again, the lens thing -- as the book's developing, on what's important and what's wandering off. If you can find people you trust, this kind of thing can be invaluable. You have to have a bell inside you, though, that rings when someone says something that resonates with your vision for the book, and is silent when what they say is for some other book. And you have to be able to hear the bell.