Mission Accomplished

This entry should have been posted three days ago at the latest, but for the last two weeks I had to work flat out going over the copyeditor’s comments across the whole book. When I received the files over two weeks ago, I didn’t think it would take as long as it did. I have responded to every query, carried out corrections, added quite a few paragraphs and deleted a few others, re-arranged the endnotes and re-styled the references.

While going through the copyeditor’s comments I couldn’t help thinking how easy it is for a writer to take things she knows for granted and assume (without really thinking about it) that the reader will understand exactly what she means. For example, in Chapter 4, which is about religious beliefs and practices, in the section on the obligatory prayers that Muslims have to offer every day, the copyeditor asked whether men and women pray in the same way. It had not crossed my mind that a non-Muslim reader might wonder about this, but then I remembered how I wondered myself before I embraced Islam.

Well, the book is off for pagination. The next time I see it, it will be page-designed, ready to be indexed. As I was attaching the files, I felt as if I were packing the suitcase of a dear child, who is not a child any more, and is now leaving home, ready to face the world. God knows what lies ahead.