Have you ever found yourself reading a book & wishing you'd already done so a year or two before? Well, that's my current experience with Dreyer's English by Benjamin Dreyer, the managing editor & copy chief at Random House. His take on the dos & don'ts of copy editing is both insightful & hysterical. The timing couldn't be better for this phase of my serialization project since my own copy editor's hat is on so tight I wonder if I'll ever be able to take it off.

Unfortunately, it's not a natural fit, but a necessary one in my independent author's journey. I can't imagine how many times I've either wished a professional editor would magically appear at my doorstep or lamented not having the wherewithal to research & hire a reliable online stand-in.

I also lament not having Dreyer's wit & knowledge at my disposal a year or so ago during the final stage of honing my first self-published novel Pearl Fields and the Oregon Meltdown. I will, of course, backfill some of the concepts I'm now learning/relearning & upload a new edition in a month or so since I've been wanting to add an Author's Note as well.

So my current challenge lies in stepping away from my new companion novel long enough to take a deep dive back into that first-person narrator's testimony that's so close to my heart. I'm fully aware that it won't be easy to keep from slipping into content editing instead of focusing exclusively on copy editing pitfalls. But unless a mage/copy editor does happen to materialize, I'm stuck with wearing my own wizard hat.

Wish me luck.
Drew Faraday
Pearl Fields and the Oregon Meltdown