Evolving Writing

Well the cover for “Quest for the Red Sapphire” has officially been changed on Amazon.  I will be updating my web sites shortly.  The new edits have not hit yet but will be uploaded soon, I am assured.  I had meant to write this blog earlier in the day and had risen early in order to do so.  Then my list of “Day Off” phone calls started and, well, here we are at midday.  As usual I am anxious to get back to writing my fourth book, “Repercussions Abound.”  As I was lying in bed last night playing through what I wanted to write I realized all the editing on the books has changed my writing style.  There are aspects I miss and new ones I am proud of having absorbed.  To be clear, I will never be an editor’s dream writer.  I am too stubborn for that.  My father is a brilliant man with an answer for nearly any question put to him.  Be that as it may, I would ask him so many questions that he would finally fall back on the favorite saying of all parents, “Because I said so!”  That mentality stuck with me in my writing.  When someone says, “Why don’t they do this instead” or “I don’t think your character would react that way.  They should act like this.”  For a while I explain myself but that is short-lived.  When someone tells me how my characters should feel or something to that effect, my father bursts out of me and I respond by saying, “It is like that because that’s the way I want it.”  Some things are worth explaining yourself while others do not deserve your effort.  In general, though, the editing has helped me improve my craft.  I have worked with 3 different editors and they have had vastly different styles.  The first one was very hands off in her approach and complimentary.  Unfortunately, she missed some glaring mistakes on my part and even worse, added mistakes of her own when editing.  It was not a good experience from a professional standpoint although she was pleasant to work with.  The second editor was a vast improvement.  She was more detail oriented but had me change certain things, not because they were wrong, but because they didn’t fit her style.  Meanwhile she added edits awkwardly into sentences making the sentence no longer make sense.  There were flagrant errors but overall it was a vast improvement over the job the first editor did.  Once again, I got along fine with her and accepted constructive criticism well.  Anyone reading this blog lately knows what I am going to say about the third editor.  To his credit, he cleaned up a lot of sloppy editing from the first editor.  He knows his craft and that was apparent.  As for the negative…it’s too exhausting to go into again but I will say his criticism was not constructive for the most part and at times was downright demeaning.  Even with the downside, I learned a good deal.  There are many things particularly in grammar I watch closer now in my writing.  I make more than my share of mistakes.  I freely admit it.  That does not mean you have the right to talk down to me.  I am a writer…an author, and that means I have a whole bad of “Because I said so” ready to go at a moment’s notice.