After the newness wears off, most of us face the fact that although our children are not perfect and often not particularly beautiful, but we never quite lose that thing that blinds us to aspects about our own kids for which we’d be less forgiving in the offspring of others.  Sometimes it is denial, sometimes it’s hope for things to be different…and sometimes I believe we simply don’t see the flaws; after all, we made them, we’ve labored over them.  We love them.

                In my humble opinion, being a serious writer is not so different from being a committed parent, particularly when it comes to seeing the true state of the end product.  Clearly, the creation process is radically different between creating a person and novel (that would have to be a subject for a rated-blog),  but, the labor, the love and certainly – for the purposes of this blog, the blindness of end product flaws, are quite similar.

                As our kids grew up, we would reel them in here and there, sometimes very strictly, sometimes trying the kinder, gentler approach…after all, who really knows what they’re doing in this parenting business?  Writing, at least that first book, is no different.  While writing The Unlikely Savior, I frequently went back before going forward, not just to ensure flow, but to edit as I went.  I wasn’t too concerned about mistakes during the writing process…just like you aren’t as worried about your kids getting a little dirty when they play or their bedrooms being trashed.  I believe it’s called picking battles.  Unlike parenting where your grown children cast from the nest are truly on their own, you have a fantastic opportunity as a writer to completely edit the end result of your novel.  You can correct mistakes, change directions and even rewrite, if necessary. 

                Once the last word was typed, I literally read it, beginning to end – all 166,000 plus words, editing to my heart’s content.  Particularly with the advent of spell check, once finished, I thought it was as good as it would get.  I sent it to my best friend to edit content, I trusted her…I had even trusted her with my children.  And of the few people who would tell me the ugly truth about anything…Mary Waddell would be the one.  Gently, of course, and she’d do it if she thought I needed to hear it.  Guess what?  My baby wasn’t necessarily ugly– it was less than perfect and she wasted no time in letting me know what I needed to do before throwing it out of the nest.  I did it all; but I didn’t read it again to makes sure it all worked.

                Like a proud parent, I thought it was perfect, or close, anyway–I’m talking about mechanics, not the quality of the story – only you, the reader, would determine that.  So I printed the entire book out and my elderly mother read it.  Mind you, although she suffers from Parkinson’s Disease and reading is a challenge, she loves to read.  When she experienced some confusion regarding certain elements of the story, I leapt in to gently explain what she must not have understood; Parkinson’s can be so insidious.  Imagine my surprise when, as I looked at the areas of her confusion and discovered I was equally confused.  Part of my major editing effort, per Mary’s guidance, had been changing of key characters’ names…I used the “find and replace” method on Microsoft office.  Suffice to say, there are certain technical aspects of using such a blanket method which are not at all 100% reliable.  The result was a very confusing situation when characters’ names were not consistent – oh no!! My “baby” was not only ugly, but appeared to have a personality disorder!  I rolled up my sleeves and gave it therapy.  And…apologized profusely to my poor mother.

                My novel, my child, and become so unpredictable and although I still loved it, still maintained accountability, I was losing confidence in my ability to see past the story.  Kind of like with my kids… I love them and will always feel responsible for them – but love is just blind.

                At that moment, my cousin Linda, suddenly and from afar, let me know she has professional editing skills; a miracle intervention!  I sent the manuscript to her lock stock and barrel, thinking she might find one or two grammatical errors, certainly no misspellings and I was very grateful for even that.

             Oh my.

             If she’d edited a paper copy instead of an electronic document and had used a red pen…well, it would have looked as if she’d hemorrhaged all over it.  But I accepted, once again, that my baby might be a little, well…unattractive, and this time, I performed major plastic surgery.  I have utter faith in Linda, to have caught it all, but I have less faith in myself to have fixed everything she found.  Kind of like when a relative wants to discipline your child and you want them just to see them for what they really are…perfect; so you don’t crack down like you should.

                The good news was, of course, that all of my editors enjoyed the story of The Unlikely Savior, it was its looks they took issue with.  I told myself that would be like having a kid with a great character but a few physical flaws…better than the other way around, right? 

                At last, I published my “perfect” product.  Even after editing, re-editing and re-editing and each time being shocked something could have “slid through,” I was naïve enough to be certain it was, at last, flawless.  It had to be.

                The first kind message came via Facebook, gently letting me in on a few typos or words that were spelled correctly, just not in the right place, you know – like “hears” instead of “ears” (we’re talking about Betsy, the three-legged dog, of course).  Spell check didn’t catch it and neither had I.  The next, very kind, well-meaning tip came by e-mail.  This kind soul had found the same errors as the last…and few more.  I thanked them both and introduced myself to the post-publication editing process and made the corrections (the beauty of self-publishing in the digital age).  It wouldn’t do a thing for the books that had gone out, already purchased, but those ten or so corrections were cast in stone for all future readers.   Finally, just before I started looking into serious marketing efforts, I felt pretty good about having that perfect child ready for the world. 

                This week, my husband read the book.  Like my previous editors and the many readers so far, he loved it.  (Yay!) Loved the story and the story telling….this from a guy that hates to read and hadn’t read a book in years.  That moment of glory was one in and of itself, the fact that he agreed with the great reviews so far was very validating.

                That was until a couple of days into it when I heard from across the house,

                “Honey?  I think I found a mistake…”

                Like taking a another call from the school principal, I was that parent again. 

                My advice to future writers?  Just assume that the editing process will be harder and more painful and longer lasting than writing the novel!  Like parenting…making it is easy and even fun (yes, I said that).  The real challenge is in the honing, the guiding, the sweat and sleepless nights of getting it ready to go out into the world.  Is it worth it?  Obviously I believe it is as I work on the next book…and look forward to many grandchildren.