The Wrong Way, the Right Way and a Pledge

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right....

Honestly, in publishing In the Sunshine, I didn't follow that old, but true adage. You see, I was all charged up with a story idea after the family and I returned home from a vacation in May. I wanted to write it and publish - to score a "quick win."

At least that was my mindset going in. I hadn't self-published in more than a year, and really hadn't written much accept for some freelance articles. So, I intended to write a short story, spiff it up with a paid editor and toss it out into the world.

Goal accomplished, I guess.

I did indeed publish on September 1. The real question is, should I have? In a word, HELL NO (okay, that's two words).

There in lies both the beauty and the trap of self-publishing: asking readers to buy a story before it's really, really ready. In The Sunshine was not ready.

I wasn't honest with myself in that respect. Sure, I had poured over it several times. Wrote and re-wrote. My editor did a good job of catching typos and other grammar issues, even had a few suggestions for me to improve the story - some of which I followed, some I didn't.

The truth is, the process wasn't enough to turn out a story worthy of someone's time and hard-earned money. I should have found some beta readers. I should have looked at my editor's remarks as a starting point instead of a finishing point. You know, it's not uncommon for a manuscript to be completely re-written or at least have several major surgeries before it hits the shelves.

Unless your name is Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, skipping the above process probably isn't a good idea. I think part of my rush to publish was a left over from my days a newspaper reporter. Because of daily or twice weekly deadlines, the stories I wrote generally went into the paper with very few structural changes. As long as there were not glaring errors, misspelled words or other grammatical defects, articles got a headline slapped on them, and BAM they were published.

Fiction doesn't work that way, at least not well-written fiction.

I should have known better.

That's why I'm pledging right here, right now, not to do it again. Ever.

Also, I'm going to pull In the Sunshine from Amazon. I'm going to work on it, I'm going to revise it and then I'm going to find a few kind souls to read the story and give feedback. When that's done, I'm going to seriously consider the feedback, rewrite again, if necessary, and then get it re-edited.

This story is going to get the TLC it should have received right from the start. However long that takes, is how long it takes. If at the end, after I've hit the publish button, and a few people actually buy and read it? Great.

If not, that's fine, too. Because I am a writer above all else, and that's enough for me.