It’s like a centripetal force, and I have managed, with reluctance, to break out of it only a few moments ago.
I think as writers we are all familiar with the number of edits we need and how we can sometimes feel as if we could make changes ad infinitum! With short stories, I will keep reading until I am ready to read it on paper and then I will keep reading and printing new versions until I stop spotting things.
I do something similar with novels only it takes longer of course. The latter stages involve reading it on my Kindle until I stop seeing errors. We all know there will be some that get through, hence the need for multiple rounds of edits AND proofreads.
I have had the edits for If Crows Could Talk for two to three weeks now. Nothing major, and all great suggestions thanks to my editor Dr Gill James’s eagle eye. I have actually completed five further reads, making other small changes I felt it needed and also spotting things I’d missed, like the age of one of the children that was out by two years for example. Something I would not expect Gill to know!
I was so tempted to read it yet again but that would be another couple of days and there has to come a point when we say we’re happy with it as it is and send it back. We have to trust the process. We have to believe that anything we still missed will be spotted when the proofing team gets to it. Otherwise, I think I will be trapped in a perpetual loop of edits it probably does not need now!
I don’t think the non-writers out there would have any idea how much goes into getting it right.
So I can now breathe a sigh of relief and finally get back to the brand-new novel that has been waiting in the wings. Good at multi-tasking that I might be, I can only ever write one thing at a time! I am also awaiting editing suggestions from my lovely agent for the novel I wrote last year!
But let me tell you… I just love my writerly life! How blessed and grateful I am.
Can’t wait to talk with the designers about the cover and release date so I can plan my launch in September!
Did I tell you I love being a writer? Oh yeah. I think I did.
Thanks, Walela Books.
“Above all birds, the hummingbird gives me that feeling of the mystery and the wonder of life. Such a vibrant little body, such color, and wings that beat faster than thought. I felt as if I could watch the whole of life if I could hold a hummingbird in my hand once.”
― Gladys Taber, The Book of Stillmeadow
Writerly Debz 