A View From The Other Side

I recently—finally—finished writing my 2008 release, Blaze of Lightning, Roar of Thunder. Way past my deadline, the pressure was on the Editorial Department to wrap up the edits quickly. Not a problem, however, because I truly believe I have the best editors in publishing.

Now, remember, I'm an editor myself. I am well aware of all the problems and pitfalls in the craft of writing. I know to avoid them in the first place, but being merely human I make mistakes anyway. So one would think my second line of defense would hold strong. My editing skills. Surely they would not fail me.

Au contraire. FAILURE. Many of you know how I harp about repeating words. Well, welcome me to your club. I don’t do it a lot, thank goodness, but I do it. I also write awkward and confusing sentences occasionally. We all know the sentences make sense to us, but editors have a different view. And usually a better one.

"Which" and "that" turned out to be a problem for me as well. They are not necessarily interchangeable, and I merrily interchanged them—to my sorrow—more than once. To make my humiliation complete I had just issued a memo to the Ed Dept. about using "that" and “which” correctly.

Icing on the cake was my misuse of some verb tenses, and a character who started out skinny and ended up fat with no eating in the middle.

OK, I'm full now. I’ve eaten enough Humble Pie. I merely hope it gives you all a New Year's chuckle. Have a good one!

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