Why Editing is the BANE of my Writing Existence

Bane, that is a funny sounding word. It sounds rather innocuous. But, here is it's definition from Dictionary.com:

bane

–noun

1.  a person or thing that ruins or spoils: Gambling was the bane of his existence.

2.  a deadly poison (often used in combination, as in the names of poisonous plants):   

          wolfsbane; henbane.

3.  death; destruction; ruin.

Yep, and nothing caused the death, destruction, and ruin, of a book like the author trying to edit the content. You come up with what seems like a good idea, you write it (editing as best you can at the time) but you do not want to interrupt the flow, so maybe you let spelling or a few commas get by you.

Now the story, book, or novel is finished and you need to go back and fix all those silly errors you probably have made. EEEEKKKK!!!!!!

This is why authors who get their works published by publishing houses are so lucky, they have people there who will be the stylist to your ugly duckling of a book. You created her, but you have no talent for giving manicures and hair cuts that will help “sell” her in the big, wide world. You have to be your works' own stylist, and that sucks.

Part of the problem for me is that looking at the work suddenly makes me nervous, and I start to doubt myself. Those negative thoughts come creeping in, saying, “who is going to buy this?” or stuff that is even worse. We are our own worst critics. That may inspire people to put their manuscript “in the desk” where it may never be heard from again, sad but true. Or it may inspire people to write more, and so this novella, turns into a novel 2 years later, which then 20 years later turns into something rivaling “War and Peace”. Then you have to go back and edit that! EEEEEEKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!

For me, I am just going to have to finishing the editing as best as I can, let go and see how it sells. The book may be successful, or it may not do well at all. That may depend upon my ability to publicize it, yet another skill that most introverted writers (like me) will have a hard time trying to do.

From what I understand, many e-books are poorly edited and that is the main criticism for these new authors who do not have publishing houses to pretty up their work. I am trying to not let that happen, and that is why I am rather nervous about going the self-publishing route. BUT, I am not going to wait to get a Literary Agent, who will then sell my book to a Publisher. I am not that patient. 10 years ago, that would have been the only way to get published, but now thanks to Amazon, and other forward-thinking websites, I can be as impatient as I like.

I do try to heed the words of advise about writing from such sources as Grammar Girl. They are helpful, funny, and can possibly let your first draft be something that is not so hard to fix. She also lets you know that while there are many hard and fast rules in English, there are also things that are disagreed upon, showing some flexibility in the interpretation of our language, and that makes me feel better.

Lastly, I would like to thank my Mother. She was the first true “editor” of my book. She is quite a good stylist, if you know what I mean. It was quite a feat to fix all my rookie errors. It had been quite a while since I had to write dialog, and boy did it show. It is always helpful to have someone else look at your work before you set it out into the big, wide world. I always have my hubby look at every blog post, just to make sure I don't say anything too embarrassing.

I am still going to go over the book at least two more times, but I am sure something (many things, probably) will get through that someone will say is a run-on sentence, or missing a comma or semi-colon or something.

BUT, I AM EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THAT WE WILL BE SELF-PUBLISHING “The Chronicles Of IDIOT” ON AMAZON IN EARLY JULY!