Proofreading

This is the last thing that happens before your book goes to press, and it must be as right as you can make it.

You’ve seen books that have boo boos and wonder how they can happen since they appear obvious.

To take on the role of proofreader means you have to be a perfectionist and have a high degree of concentration. A proofreader aims for perfect grammar, spelling, facts, punctuation; perfect everything.

As you can imagine, this is a difficult task, especially when reading a four-hundred page book!

But wait, it gets worse: you as the writer must do your best to make the proofreaders job that much more easier. No thinking that any mistakes you make will be picked up in the editing or proofreading stage: that is just lazy and will get you the corresponding reputation. Keep doing it, and publishers will consider your work too hard.

Publishers and their staff, as we know, are busy people. Get a reputation as a perfectionist for your own work and publishers, editors and proofreaders will breathe a sigh of relief.

A writer must pursue the same perfection as the proofreader, must produce the best possible work, must know when to let it go, too. And no writer will be completely satisfied with the work. There is always something that could be done better.

All this, just when you thought writing the book was the hard stuff. Nup.

Writing is a perpetual motion machine. You get an idea, you start the research, you develop your characters, plot, and theme, you break it all down from chapters into scenes, you start to write, you wrestle with ongoing issues, recalcitrant characters and a plot that doesn’t seem to be working as well as when you first thought of it, you finish the first draft and do a happy dance, you then go back and edit, and re-write, and restructure, and delete, and re-write and the second draft is done, you go back and do a third draft, you send it out for critique, you do another re-write or edit, you send it to a publisher, you receive (let’s be positive here) and acceptance with major corrections, you go back and do them, you send it back, they send it back with minor adjustments, you do them and send it back, praying it’s for the last time, the galley proofs arrive, you read through it, send it back and sit down, in need of a very large drink, the publishers send you a publishing date, you start worrying that the book is good enough to succeed, to break even, not to fail, you understand it could have been better, should have been better if only you’d… then you get an idea, you start the research…

I haven't even mentioned the ongoing saga of finding an agent - whether you should or not - finding a publisher, finding the right publisher, agent, editor, critique group, etc...

And somewhere in this, you’ve got to concentrate on being the perfectionist, do a line edit, re-read it all to try and see what the reader will see. Sigh, and this is supposed to be… fun?

It can be. If you've got focus, drive, ambition, a thick skin, imagination...
and a sense of humour. Never lose that, and never lose sight of your goal.