So, I know the stuff I write is good. No doubt about that as I have had many people tell me that - even those I do not know. However they have almost all told me the same thing (something I already knew was an issue), and this is: I have technical issues with my writing.
Now of course no author likes to hear anything negative about their work... It's perfectly natural to dislike this in major ways. And I hate to admit it (after knowing what i know now) but I really got upset at the first two or three people that said this to me! After the fourth, I didn't even blink at it. I knew they were right. I also realized that I had not been angry or upset at those first three people either, but angry and upset with myself.
After the fourth person said the same thing the first three had told me, I remembered what my mother always told me. It was something she heard in Al-Anon (she went to it in the 80's when my older sister had issues). She told me, "If one person tells you that you have a tail growing out of your ass, ignore them. If ten people tell you you have a tail growing out of your ass, you might just want to go look in a mirror." Or something along those lines. But you get the point (I hope).
I am no editor. But the fact that I type with 4 fingers and a thumb, and have always, even in collage (college - get it??), had spelling errors and mixed-up words like Suit, Suite, and Sweet (maybe not the last one)... makes this constructive criticism not unexpected (yet still unwanted of course).
With that said, I do have a writer's brain... I can look up words in online dictionaries and utilize Wikipedia and and recognize when I do have stupid mistakes in retrospect. However, I HATE going back and reading my own stuff to edit it. I can read it for content and sometimes see errors I have made, but that is not the same thing. I have tried reading (or viewing) everything backwards - editing from back to front in order to reveal mistakes I have made without getting caught up in what I THINK I have written. But, well, I suck at it. I have tried rereading every word in a specific paragraph twice and still missed mistakes. So I have come to the simple conclusion that I am NOT my own editor! I should never proof my own stuff! It's that simple. Funny thing is, I can see other people's mistakes clear as day. Just not my own.
So I am most likely going to have my stuff edited and then resubmitted. All my works in progress and works i have done but not published yet will be edited by someone else as well before I publish them. Ugg... it makes me sick that i just can't do it myself...
Now of course no author likes to hear anything negative about their work... It's perfectly natural to dislike this in major ways. And I hate to admit it (after knowing what i know now) but I really got upset at the first two or three people that said this to me! After the fourth, I didn't even blink at it. I knew they were right. I also realized that I had not been angry or upset at those first three people either, but angry and upset with myself.
After the fourth person said the same thing the first three had told me, I remembered what my mother always told me. It was something she heard in Al-Anon (she went to it in the 80's when my older sister had issues). She told me, "If one person tells you that you have a tail growing out of your ass, ignore them. If ten people tell you you have a tail growing out of your ass, you might just want to go look in a mirror." Or something along those lines. But you get the point (I hope).
I am no editor. But the fact that I type with 4 fingers and a thumb, and have always, even in collage (college - get it??), had spelling errors and mixed-up words like Suit, Suite, and Sweet (maybe not the last one)... makes this constructive criticism not unexpected (yet still unwanted of course).
With that said, I do have a writer's brain... I can look up words in online dictionaries and utilize Wikipedia and and recognize when I do have stupid mistakes in retrospect. However, I HATE going back and reading my own stuff to edit it. I can read it for content and sometimes see errors I have made, but that is not the same thing. I have tried reading (or viewing) everything backwards - editing from back to front in order to reveal mistakes I have made without getting caught up in what I THINK I have written. But, well, I suck at it. I have tried rereading every word in a specific paragraph twice and still missed mistakes. So I have come to the simple conclusion that I am NOT my own editor! I should never proof my own stuff! It's that simple. Funny thing is, I can see other people's mistakes clear as day. Just not my own.
So I am most likely going to have my stuff edited and then resubmitted. All my works in progress and works i have done but not published yet will be edited by someone else as well before I publish them. Ugg... it makes me sick that i just can't do it myself...