You ever have one of those mornings that feel like a black cloud swallowed your day? The middle of my week started out with a loud bang, clang, and grind and I had to turn around to bring my car into the mechanic. Being someone who doesn’t ever want to buy a new car again, I can’t quite leg go of my decade old tin can. We’ve been through a lot together. Guess what’s going to be in my stocking this year? A bill for car repairs.
Moving forward with my day as the tin can gets fixed, I’m waiting for one more round of minor fixes from my two coauthors. Their approach to their first book is one I admire because I rushed mine to get it published and wished I slowed down later. My sleep deprived self tried to get children’s books published in a month and an adult novel published before I had to quickly upload some edits I didn’t catch the first time. Though the world is more forgiving of typos, we’re all hoping spell and grammar check, beta readers, and our editors have caught them but even after all these steps – it still happens. Don’t be too hard on yourself if it does.
The speed that we’re expected to pump out new novels is much faster with today’s digital publishers, and I still catch large publishers with the same problem – we’re all human. Try to be patient when your finished with your final draft because the editing process can and should take months. I recommend that you even take a few weeks away from your work because looking at it too much, means you will miss things. The best thing for reviewing your work is looking at every word with fresh eyes as much as possible. You need to get out of your own head and read your book as a reader who doesn’t think, speak, or know your inside jokes. The more I write and edit, the more I realize that breaks are important for all processes of publishing a novel.
Let me know if you have other tips to share when it comes to editing your own work in the comments. In the meantime, I might wander off to a dark corner and write about a hot mechanic or two that brighten up a day that started out bad.
My posts are Monday through Friday.
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~Yoon Ju
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