After a months-long hiatus, Nayt from New Rivers Press contacted me today, sending me the next round of edits. This time, Frozen Voices was edited by Joan, a professional editor, as opposed to the student editors who had previously been working on it. Reading through the edits from Joan, I was struck by how her comments about the novel differed from the students’ notes. She seemed to focus a bit more on the over-arching themes of the work while the students seemed to look more at the individual scenes. By combining these two perspectives, I feel like FV will benefit greatly, having been carefully examined on at least two different levels of thought.
Now I need to read through all of Joan’s edits and decide which ones to accept and which to reject. With just a cursory review of her comments, though, I am fairly sure that I will be accepting most of her suggestions. They seem quite insightful and appropriate for what I was trying to accomplish with this novel.
Nayt also sent me two different versions of the artwork for the cover of FV. The designer stayed with his mirror-image version of the Larchmont, showing the ship as a silhouette on the water and then again as an outline in stormy waves underneath the ship. One of the versions is done in sepia tones and one is done in blue-gray tones. I prefer the color of the latter one. It looks more “frozen” to me.
I am a little concerned about the font used for the cover. The letters are quite thin and actually become illegible from just a short distance away. I think I’ll suggest bolding the font or switching to a different font.
Nayt requested that I return my comments on the edits and my reaction to the covers by May 25th. That shouldn’t be a problem.