Life goes on and so does editing

As much as I would like to hibernate in a room and just write, life keeps on moving around me and requiring my attention. So, this week, I took the dog to the vet for some unexpected surgery and then was up all night with her, was at the ER till 1:00am with my EMT boy the next day (he keeps passing out), and the next day I took my mom to the ER for her Congestive Heart Failure. It's like a central Indiana ER tour, without sleep.

My body is still trying to recharge, so I spent the day surfing, the internet, not the waves. There are not a lot of waves in Indiana, and I found an interesting blog at BookEnds, LLC — A Literary Agency: How Long to Query.

BookEnds, and I hope they will forgive me for quoting, but BookEnds states: "Hands down one of the biggest mistakes I see authors making is spending all their time and energy revising, rewriting and reworking that first book. I know from experience that over time you can do more damage than good with all of that revising."

This is something I have wondered about as far as the book I am writing. I am actually working on my third book, none published though, so I tend to worry about everything a bit. But, I found one way to resolve that issue.

Never, ever, ever throw out or delete anything. I have printed this book out twice in full and I have CD backups for over three years now. I back up a minimum of once a month, and I do a flashdrive backup every night. And, I will say, that any time I thought to myself that I was not improving the book, I have been able to go back and so far the improvements have been improvements. That said, I will add that for my picture book, I still favor my original version and am very glad I kept a copy of it.

I did, however, reach a point with this book where I felt I had gone as far as I could and that is when I called in my Super-Hero .....Master's Daughter, to the rescue. Originally, it was for grammar and punctuation but it turned into so much more.

Master's Daughter is a sixth grade teacher, a writer, a worker with electron microscopes and now for her summer will be working with an Atomic Force Microscope. Her heros are Einstein and Yoda. She is bright and funny, knows today's kids, and we work so well together.

My book has been a family project: inspired by grandsons/sons, ideas from them and husband and now a massive tweaking with daughter. Her ideas have really added that touch I was searching for. And, no matter how much I wanted to get it out to agents and editors by June, the extra months will be worth it.

So, the lesson is, always keep backups at every step and try to stay out of the ER.