Applying What I learned

I learned a lot about editing from my experiences with both Melange and Penumbra. But if I was to be objective about it, I would have to say that my experiences with The Vase at Penumbra resulted in a much better understanding of editing. And that's because Penumbra was far more strict, and had a more literal view about editing than Melange. It's probably why Penumbra publishes fewer titles per month than Melange. So it's only logical, then, that they spend more time with each title before they publish it.

There's positive and negative about that. It might take longer, but I don't care about that. Maybe I did for my first book. Being a first time published author, I was eager to see my book in print. But in the long run, that is not advisable. You want your manuscript to be the best it can be. Period. And if Penumbra implements my latest edits, (which are based on their own edits, btw,) then it will be the best it can be.

And while I'm waiting to see if they do, I'm going to apply all that I've learned to my other manuscripts. Yes, even Killer of Killers. I've already had it relaunched three times at Melange because I wasn't satisfied after it was published. At least they were cooperative, and agreed to it. But after my latest experiences with The Vase, I have found that I prefer the guidelines for writing and editing that Penumbra uses, and I want to apply those guidelines to Killer of Killers, too. I've already started. The past couple days, I've been redoing it, using Penumbra's strict POV guidelines, and other writing standards they have. It makes for better writing. The lazy writer wouldn't do that. But lazy is something I am not. And that's how you become a better writer. By taking the time to learn, and then applying what you've learned. We'll see where this leads me.