Never Say Never

Shortly after I published "Confessions of a Catholic School Dropout", I became aware of a few typos that had alluded me until then. A friend suggested that I edit and republish.

"I'll never do that.  Never," I said.

My reason wasn't laziness. I wanted to be true to myself. The book is a snapshot of who I was and what I was capable of writing two years ago. I felt like it should remain unchanged so that over time, my work would show how I've improved and changed as a writer. I didn't want to feel like I should update the manuscript every time my writing style changed.

Here we are two years later. For some reason that I don't recall, I picked up Confessions and read a couple of pages. I'd not looked at it since it was published.  Jaysus! What was I thinking?  

I cannot leave Confessions the way it is. I've spent the past week doing a serious overhaul. The story will be unchanged, but the writing will (hopefully) be much cleaner. I had some bad habits that I wasn't aware of. Geez Louise! I can't get a new edition out there fast enough, BUT I don't want to make the same mistake I made the first time. In my eagerness to publish, I didn't spend enough time editing. I suppose that's not unusual for self-published authors. I don't want to do that again.

Don't get me wrong. I'm proud of what I created. I just want to make it better. 

One of the more arduous tasks ahead is to remove all of the extra spaces between sentences. I learned yesterday that typing two spaces after a period is wrong. Plain and simple. I didn't believe it either. After reading a Facebook post by Tracy Magin, I did some research. I've been doing it wrong for more than twenty years. Don't believe me?  Check it out.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/space_invaders.html

Thanks, Tracy. You magnified my workload exponentially, but at least now I know that I've been doing it wrong. Now I have to find a way to break the habit of smacking the space bar twice after every period. That habit will be most difficult to break.

You may recall from previous posts that I've been working on a third novel. I really like the plot and some of the characters are real doozies. Here's the rub:  One of the characters is a crooked cop and several others are deputies and detectives from a local law enforcement agency. I'm currently being processed by that agency for a position that I really hope to secure. If I publish the book before I'm hired, I will most certainly not be brought onboard. If I'm hired and then publish, I'd surely be fired.

Deja vu, right?

Changing the book's location is not an option.  The plot centers around mini season.  I might be able to change the agency for which the characters work, but it wouldn't be realistic.  I'm going to continue to write/perfect it and most likely save it for publication at a much later date.  

That whole freedom of speech thing sure is a slippery slope. I've fallen down it more than once.

I've learned that it's impossible to predict how people will react to the written word. I never expected that so many adults would get their panties in a bunch over fiction and personal blog posts.  Apparently, the phrase "sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never harm me" is a load of crap, because too many people take personal offense to things that don't really matter. Take a deep breath, people! 

I'm bummed about not releasing the third novel. I set a personal goal to publish one each year, but that may not be possible in 2014...unless a character like Daphne Schneider from Fat Chance starts whispering in my ear again. That book wrote itself in a few short months. If that phenomenon repeats itself, then I could have a book out by year's end.  Don't hold your breath.

Never say never!