When I Came West (Part Seventeen)
All through December I worked on cutting and pasting, re-visioning my story, and emailing Chuck Rankin with many questions about how to incorporate information and make flowing transitions.
I worked with the diligence of a person who had one last chance to make a book worthy. I cut 54,000 words. My original manuscript came in at 314 pages and 97,496 words. Other drafts came in at 94,490; 45,757 (I was really wielding the knife then); and 52,867.
Throughout this process Chuck Rankin kept my spirits up and encouraged me to no end. He truly believed in the book with the same kind of dedication that Matt Bokovoy had exhibited. He found some solid ground for my introduction and he helped me find a way to tie up loose ends in an epilogue.
I made a deadline for myself: the end of the year, 2007, and I accomplished my goal. In early January I had my manuscript back from Chuck Rankin with a list of things that still needed to be "fixed," especially in the writing that was newly incorporated into the whole. I began work on the changes.
On February 4th, I heard through via email that Matt Bokovoy was no longer with the University of Oklahoma Press. By February 12th, I'd written to Chuck that I was "close to having a worthy final draft." I sent that in and things moved very quickly. Positive marks arrived from the necessary reader of the final work, with a few suggestions for revision along with the news from Chuck, "The editorial committee approved your project this afternoon.
One more hurdle with the Faculty Advisory Board and we're home." Without hesitation I made the final reader revisions I agreed with and sent a note to Chuck about why I did not want to follow through with the other suggestions.
I knew, finally, that I was finished making changes. If my story could not fly now, it never would.
