The Truth is Discovered

My editor at Xchyler Publishing did three short stories for the spring anthology ‘Blonds,Books, &Bourbon’ – one of which was the very first ever written.

Two of them took little work on my part to make the changes she pointed out. Another took more work, but as it too was an older story, I wasn’t surprised.

Then she messaged me and mentioned she was working on one titled, ‘Nightmare’ and that she could see the difference in how far I’ve come since this one had been writing. I chuckled to myself because Nightmare is not very old at all, much newer than two of the others. What I did realize is that that particular short story hadn’t got through my usual routine. It had not seen the red pen of fury my personal editor wields so accurately. It hadn’t thus got a second edit from me. Since it didn’t get that it never got sent on to my beta reader, with her keen eye, and sound insight to the White Dragon Black world. And so it didn’t get it’s third edit.

I admitted this to my editor. I told her the issues she was having was not that it had been written long ago but that it hadn’t gone through the usual editing process. She was see – for the first time – my raw, unedited, words. I told her she know understood why I insisted on taking these steps before sending her anything.

Her response … ‘I wish more authors were that considerate’.

I love my editors (and beta readers) and would be hopelessly lost (and probably unpublished) without them.