Why authors should never read their own books
It probably doesn’t surprise you to hear that after a book is published, I never want to read it again. I’ve wrestled with writing it and rewriting it so many times, I’m sick of it.
I recently got the rights back to Just One Wish, and knew there were some mistakes to fix. (I had my character leave on a Wednesday when she should have left on Tuesday. Etc) And of course, I wanted to add in those two lines that my editor made me take out.
But of course I found a zillion other things to change. And right off I have to tell all of you people who loved the printed book–thank you! Thank you! Thank you! for overlooking all of the little problems. I used the phrase “There was a long pause” too much. I also overused the word “expression”. No one ever pointed that out in any of the reviews–which just shows me that readers are a forgiving bunch.
Anyway, the cool thing about ebooks is that you can go back and fix all of those things that bug you later. (Yay ebooks!)
That said, now I worry that with all of the changes I made, I added some typos. If you find any, let me know–because with ebooks, you can fix your typos. (Again, yay ebooks!)
And the two lines I put back in . . .
In the scene where Annika is on the set as a nun extra:
The director held up one hand in the air. “And don’t look so angry,” he yelled as though I were tormenting him. “You’re a nun, for heaven’s sake!”
Yes, well, I supposed that was the reason most nuns went into the profession.
My editor had me take out “Yes, well, I suppose that was the reason most nuns went into the profession. He said nuns went into the profession for Christ’s sake, not heaven’s. I thought that was splitting hairs, but at that point I was tired of fighting about it.
And the second line he made me take out . . . hmmm . . . maybe I’ll let you find that one yourself.
Also, if you’ve already read the book, can you please go leave a review? My 53 reviews aren’t transferring over from the print book. Thanks!!
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Copied my review over 🙂
Thanks!
Left you a review! Hope you like it!
Thanks!
I read this post and thought, “Hey, I’ll just copy over that review I wrote for my blog back in 2011.” Then I read through it and discovered I was really horrible at writing reviews in 2011. Excuse me while I come up with something better to say about Just One Wish.
That’s the beauty of writing: you improve over time! Thanks for the review!