Be Careful With Revisions

With any manuscript, you'll need to make revisions. But sometimes those revisions are vulnerable to errors. I just found a place in my John Dunn manuscript where I had made a revision, but neglected to put in the closing quotations in a dialogue between John Dunn and Prince Cetshwayo. I also should have made the next sentence a new paragraph. I revised it a little more last night, and now it's good, but the typo version is the version I had sent to Knox Robinson. So there you go. An author's worst fear. Sending a flawed manuscript to a publisher who's considering it for publication. It's a very minor flaw as flaws go, but if you're a perfectionist, as all artists are, it is bothersome.

Well, it's better now. As I'm rereading this manuscript, I am improving it here and there, all minor stuff, and I'm keeping track of all changes minor as they are. So if Knox Robinson does offer a contract, I'll have a list of the changes I've made in the meantime to put in the manuscript once we get to the editing stage. Yeah, these are some things I've learned with experience. Not that I'm so experienced, but I am a veteran of sorts by now.

It's a lot of fun. From art to music to novels, the creative process keeps you going. Two sons and a wife keep you going, too. It's a wonder I have any time to write at all. But I do, and it's a great thing for a couple reasons. It's something that I can do at home, in the same house with my family, and unlike when I was doing music, I'm keenly aware of the happenings in the house while I'm doing my writing. (With music, having the headphones on was like being isolated to a degree.)

And with art, having paints out, and a painting area laid out, it's something that can't be dropped at a moment's notice. Too much clean up involved with painting, whether it's oils, acrylics, or watercolor. No, with writing, you can stop and go, go and stop at any point. It's the wonder of the computer. Without computers, I'd be stuck on the canvas. Three cheers for computers.