Last Friday I finally got to meet with my editor about my first draft. It was an amazing experience for me. I chose to completely remove myself from the content of the book until the editor was able to speak with me. That turned out to be a great decision. I was able to look at everything with a fresh perspective. Being immersed in the creative period makes it extremely difficult to objectively judge your own work. Her primary critique was that book seemed to be many books inside of one book.
“I can tell that you kind of noticed that at some point and tried to tie them together, but it didn’t exactly work. You obviously have a lot of ideas. Always remember, you can always put some of this stuff in another book.”
She was right. Although I am not necessarily looking forward to writing several books, it was nice to be reminded that if I really have something I need to tell the world I can always write another book. I have to admit I had this pressure on myself where I was writing as if this was the only book I’d ever be able to write. It genuinely felt like this book was the only chance to share my thoughts with the world. It was like if I died ‘tomorrow’, I would at least have those words to live on.
Because of this issue most of the meeting was about direction and forming a more concise message. She had so much constructive criticism and I am excited to meet her challenges. The greatest part of it all was to see how much I actually wrote. It assured me of the importance of working hard on building something today; because once it is built your accomplishment cannot be taken away from you. “Wow, I wrote all of that…wow…I can’t believe I did that.” When I looked at the papers I could see early mornings, long hours, missed TV shows and outings with friends. Those papers were a culmination of at least 8 months of my life, just as a college degree represents a person’s years spent in classrooms and libraries. I still have a long way to go, but being told what I did wrong has never been so encouraging. Written by Sean
BeChoozy 