Starting Over is Hard… When It Comes To Editing And Quality Editors

I have this funny thing with my writing, I can write a 150 page book, with no problems, but editing, while that is a different matter. So I have to say, there are editors and then… there are EDITORS (by this I mean really good editors.)

I wrote my book with the intention of editing it by the end of the month, and many thanks to my editors advice, I am pleased ti say I am happy with a greatly improved manuscript.  This is what I mean:

1) I lost the “redundancy” of my work.  I didn’t realize I was repeating the same words over the course of five or six pages.  This is very boring to a reader.

2) My style was good, but as my editor pointed out, I was inconsistent with it in terms of the “voice” of the person.  It took my mind awhile, but I figured out that this meant as I developed the story, the history I lost the person.  In a non-fiction book this is a bad thing.

3) Grammar.  This is a blog post, best not to get into that part of it.  Three books one must have Elements of Style, Getting the Words Right, and a good dictionary.  Grammar must be done before publishing a book.  I think I needed to do this for my book, and for a better blog post.

The main thing which I learned was that good enough is good, better is working to improve on good enough in all of the pages you write.  I think it was because I had a quality editor who didn’t mince words that helped me a lot.  Oh, and I did get one chapter in less than 24 hours from my editor. (I have found a few more errors that I can fix, but a lot more were found.)

Are they good or what?  It takes a lot of focus to be a good editor, and an editor should do more than just compliment the writer.  They have to teach them to improve their writing, which in turn will help them make money, and get better reviews.  My editor has done wonders for me.