G’day.

We all want to make a living from our writing. That’s a given. If it is not, then you should have a very good reason for writing to take the place of that dream. Otherwise,  you are just spinning your wheels and growing frustrated and tired.

There is more than one problem to this scene. Sure, you think that everything you write is gold. That’s normal. It is very much like having your first child when you finally get a piece of writing completed. Everything about it is perfect. Never mind that the child may have skin tags which need removing, or looks as though he/she may develop a squint. These are things you can deal with after the euphoria of actually having the child in your arms  has worn off.

In the deepest part of you the thought of doing anything at all to improve this gorgeous creature which you have created is blasphemy. It is perfect the way it is.

Unfortunately, others will not see your creation as perfect. Missed punctuation, bad grammar, unless it is deliberate, anything that interrupts the flow of the work can throw a reader out of your story and they often develop a subconscious reaction which is to deliberately look for these mistakes.

When this happens, the reader even more often will spot another typo and decide that the book is poorly written and quit reading it immediately. Added to that reaction is often a bad review. The story may be quite well written, the characters believable, but small mistakes can ruin the best manuscript. There are too many books already on the market that are pretty much perfect which they can read. These may not be as good in story as yours, but they don’t throw the reader out by being poorly written.

You should put your manuscript in a drawer for at least a couple of weeks, no matter how keen you are to introduce your creation to the world. This time allows you to forget about it to a certain degree and you will see your piece from a different point of view because the raw feeling of production is gone.

You will be able to see mistakes more easily. Now is the time to bring an editor into the act. Having an editor straight up the day you finish the story is never a good idea. A good editor will make suggestions as to how you can make the writing stronger, as well as pick up the bits that are not grammar-correct or punctuated properly.

If you hand the script over to an editor straight away, their comments may hurt you badly, although they are just doing their job. Giving yourself this break allows your emotions to settle down somewhat.  Stephen King in his excellent book “On Writing” encourages writers to leave the script mature in a drawer before looking at it again after it is finished.

Admittedly, this process adds time, which most of us don’t have lying around in great heaps. Fill in this time by reconnecting with family and friends, starting another book, simply returning to the living world. If you can’t do this, however, the best thing to do is to outline another book. When you are wrestling with new doings and characters, the first book tends to recede into the background and you can look at it with a less passionate eye.

I am as guilty of wanting my darlings to shine in public as anyone else. But I have also learned that getting a cutting comment on one of my books which I rushed out without doing any cleaning up of it was not worth it. The problem? Several commas were missing. It hurt deeply. The commenter made not one remark on the actual story.

Lesson learned.