I didn’t think this would happen.
After listening to a few podcasts from Rockin Self-publishing Podcast, I started seeing my work in a slightly different light. In an interview with Seeley Booth, I started realizing that I need to pay attention a little more to me grammar and composition.
Although Seeley Booth and The Rockin Self-publishing Podcast had inspired this, I was given also a fit of hubris. What I realized was I wanted to compare myself to other online self-published authors. I wanted to see if what I saw on my page that I had created compared with some of the best of the e-book Market. Pretty arrogance right? So I looked and I compared and I judged coming to the snotty believe that I could stand up with the best of them.
Then I saw that one of the authors I had taken a look at partnered with Clive Cussler. That he brought me a bunch of humility. Now I know what a real Pro can do in a few pages that I hope to get to soon in my life. Consider it a goal that I don’t know if I will ever reach. No, that’s not really true. I think that if I do push myself and I do try with all my heart, I could have that level of talent. Arrogant? Sure thing. But a goal that is worthy of having none the less.
Having my humility brought back into alignment with my confidence that had grown through the experience, I looked once again at my own words. They were far from what I wanted. When I took a look again at these passages, which I did not spend too much time in, but spent enough time to realize what it is he was talking about. I started grabbing a hold of sentences and throttling them like a kid grabbing a garter snake. Grabbing it behind the head and shaking it like a bobble doll. There was a certain amount of Glee that I gained from looking at my phrasing and going nope. I realized how weak some of my sentence structure and phraseology sounded in my head.
The earliest chapters of my book that I had finished left a lot to be desired. I began having an experience looking at those words similar to Howard Roark fixing the design of the Cosmo Slotnik Building. I could see what I needed to do under the crap and wanted to start dragging it out cleaning it and putting it all in its rightful place.
And throughout it all now, as this desire to edit, I keep hearing the song Midlife Crisis in my head.
“Go on dig your thumbs in, my head is like lettuce.”
That is what I want to do. Dig my thumbs in and pull this thing apart and make something grand with the threads.
BTW, this blog is not edited much, sticking to stream of consciousness writing by dictation and the voice recognition and editing via my phone is well… rough to do. That is part of its style and perhaps charm.
I hope that’s considered charm at least.
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