My Book Has An Editor

The publisher that is publishing my book has assigned an editor to my book! It feels surreal to type that out. When I self-published my first novel I did all of the editing myself. If you've read my self-published novel, I'm sorry, and it's probably more than slightly obvious that I edited it myself. I'm not and never have really been particularly good at editing. I do my best, and I try as hard as I can, but it's not something that I particularly excel at. You can probably tell that from these blog posts as well.

I am both super incredibly excited about the idea of having an editor assigned to my book as well as being terrified. What if they hate it? What if they come up with all of these things that need to be improved, and I'm simply just not good enough to do the things that need to be done to improve them? The imposter syndrome is hitting thick and hard on this one. It tells me that I'm not good enough and this is where my book eventually dies.

I also know the editing process is going to make my book better than anything I've ever written before. That's what I'm trying to keep in my mind. It's not about whether or not I'm good enough. I decided to go through a publication company because I knew that my books could be better...with the help of others. I am so beyond excited to see how Win's Books Publishing and the editor they have chosen for me can help me take the rough stone that is my book as it currently stands, and help me find the gem hidden deep inside it.

I know this book has the potential to be something amazing. It forced me to write it. I mean, it basically did. I first came up with the idea for this book nearly 30 years ago. I tried a few other times over the years to write it. I had the general plot down. I had the general concept in my head. I could never figure out what really drove the story though. Every other time I would get about ten to twenty thousand words into it and decide that it didn't really have enough meat to make it a full novel.

This time everything just kind of clicked. I came up with a new driving force for the plot in terms of Tom trying to find out who's been giving him money all of these years. I came up with characters in Fox (my IRL friend and favorite Twitch streamer in the world), Crimson, Dirk, and Teddy who help drive the story along, and genuinely could probably each stand on their own in their own stories...expect to see much more of Teddy in the future by the way.

That's my goal going forward with my characters. I want every single character to have enough uniqueness to them, and enough reason for them being who they are and being where they are that they could realistically stand as their own character in their own story if I really wanted them to.

So back to editing. I know...my thought process always gets so ridiculously derailed with these posts. "Rediscovering Reality" has an editor assigned to it. Yay! I should be meeting with her in a couple weeks to go over her initial impression of it. I'm so terrified. I really am incredibly scared. Most of all though I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that working with someone, being vulnerable, and being open to someone else pointing out what needs improvement and what doesn't work, because I know in the end that's what I need to make this the best piece of writing that I've ever created.