The day after finishing my book I sat in a chair and reread the entire menuscript. Yikes., I mispelled several words. I mixed up the names of two brothers critical to the plot. I repeated the same scene twice in the story. Some of my characters were not developed enough. I started to ramble about things not important to the story line. My book was in trouble. I had to correct these problems. I realized a complete rewrite was needed before I could approach a publisher. The joy of completing years of writing was jaded by the thought of doing a thourough editing of my manuscript. It was like diving into a pool of ice water. I fixed every error I could find. I read the book so many times I could recite it by memory. It was now perfect. I gave it to a friend and asked him to look for errors. He took the book in his hands glanced at a few pages and immediately found two spelling errors. I fainted. It took me another month to get the manuscript perfect. I was ready to find a publisher. What have we learned in this second step of writing a book? We learned that editing is probably the most important step in the process. A professionally done book should have no spelling errors. Sentance construction is important. If you are not good at these tasks, hire a professional. I was ready to get my novel published. (next post.Finding a publisher.)
