What’s the hardest thing to do when you’ve received praise?
I believe the hardest thing for many of us is to consider that we could have done better.
Yes, you’ve done something that received acclaim, but does that really mean you’ve done your best?
No, it means you’ve done enough.
*
In July 2015, while I was working hard simultaneously on Give & Take: A Tale of Erotica, and Beyond The Law: Retribution, I wrote a blog titled A Review of Reviews.
I stated in the post that I intended to get my main projects published by December 2015, and then I would tackle each of my titles, one after another to perform a full critical analysis and rewrite.
Well, guess what … it’s November and those two main projects are now published.
*
What are my projects for the months ahead?
My agenda is flexible, but fairly well set up for the foreseeable future:
1. Continue working on my next anthologies
– The Welcome: and other Sci-Fi stories
– A Time for Courage: and other military stories
2. Dust off and get back to work on my fact-based fiction / coming of age story A Life of Choice, which I will now be producing in a series of books.
3. Continue to work behind the scenes to support and build on the success of the Indie Author Support and Discussion Facebook group, especially with the restructuring of the group website.
4. Read and review titles from the IASD group website.
5. In December 2015 I will begin what I said I would do – commence a detailed revision and rewrite of all of my titles.
– Make a copy of the main manuscript.
– Read and make notes from every review, whether positive or negative issues.
– Locate and amend the negative issues as a priority.
– Read the story as a reader, and look out for the telltale signs of the novice. I will have a list of key words and phrases in front of me to locate and zap / replace.
– Subject each chapter individually to Grammarly to double-check punctuation, grammar, and so on.
– Amend the cover and inside information to have a subtle ‘Revised Edition’ with the appropriate date.
– Ask for beta readers in advance of completion.
– When all bugs are ironed out, republish and set up a Kindle Countdown Deal to kick-start interest in the title, and my brand.
– Move on to the next title.
*
How long will it take?
Time is not my major concern, because if I’m aiming to achieve a higher standard, it takes as long as it takes.
I’d like to think if I don’t touch the poetry series, I might be capable of dealing with the novels and short stories by next summer. It will be interesting. I’ve no doubt there will be many things which are fine, but there will be issues and it will be a test of my mettle to deal with them properly.
*
I will of course report back on a regular basis. Once underway, I will not give up.
Thank you once again for joining me on my journey. All comments are welcome.
***
Filed under: Achievement, Competitions, General, Insight, Novel, Poetry, Promotion, Review, Short Stories Tagged: anthologies, editing, listening, novels, reading, reviews, short stories, writing
