| |
As a novice, self-published writer, I’m flying solo, and mistakes will be made.
My first mistake was the initial release of this novel.
There were more errors throughout the manuscript than I care to admit because I relied on an editor—I deemed a professional—instead of myself, to check my work before publishing.
The second mistake was to put my novice-writer ego over sound judgment.
I trustingly allowed my editor to skew my judgment by eagerly accepting her overly complementary, three-paragraph manuscript evaluation to pass for expert criticism. My swelled ego clouded my judgment and led me to accept her explanation that she’d made so few edits to the manuscript because my writing had considerably improved. Reading the novel one year later, I’m finding zero revisions made.
The third mistake was to rely on someone other than myself.
I hastily accepted my editor’s assessment of the manuscript was good to publish as-is and proceeded to upload without thoroughly checking it. The novel was riddled with mistakes: spelling, punctuation, character names, and their descriptions were inconsistent, to name a few. All errors I relied on a professional—I paid well—to correct.
As the saying goes, “Live and learn.”
It’s possible my manuscript wasn’t worthy of her editing services, but this is my dream she willingly toyed with. Not to mention the fact I didn’t need to pay someone thousands of dollars to read my book, which I believe is all she did, and contribute to my embarrassment in the process. I can embarrass myself just fine on my own.
From here on, I’ll be triple checking my work and rely only on me, myself, and I. As a result the prose may not be as perfect as I
would like, but not only will I save a ton of money, but I’ll avoid the needless aggravation and possibly put out a better product.
I think I have a nice story to tell. I hope you enjoy this second edition, written, edited, cover-designed, and published by me, myself and I.
I can now cross out the bullet point off my bucket list.
.
No one can leave your past behind unless you do.
—M.L. Lexi
