-Jan R

-Jan R

About a six months ago I wrote a blog on biting the bullet. I had done everything I knew to do to get a novel that I had put years of blood, sweat, and tears into, published. It was a great story. I even had that confirmed by a literary agent, who gave it more attention than it deserved. It was time to get some help.

I had run into a brick wall and placed the piece of work to the side to gather dust. Maybe it was never suppose to get published. Maybe it was just a platform for me to sharpen my writing skills and produce the novel that was screaming to get out. As much as I tried to move on, I kept coming back to my flagship.

I finally turned it over to an editor not knowing what to expect. She started feeding me a couple chapters at a time with revisions and suggestions to make my work more marketable. She cleaned up the numerous structural and grammatical errors that I as well as friends had overlooked.

One thing that I learned through this process, is you can’t write in a vacuum. I produced a great story, but it wasn’t publishable. I couldn’t see the mistakes. I put years into editing, revising, and just trying to do everything myself. I did eventually reach out and pull in a couple of my closest friends, but they didn’t have the trained eye of an editor. They caught quite a bit, but they missed even more.

I should be submitting the story to literary agents again in the next few months. I have to admit, I’m both excited and anxious. But however it goes, if you follow my blog, you will hear about it.

Thanks for your continued support. I hope that the blogs I share help you to avoid some of my mistakes and are worthy of the time put into reading them.

-Jan R

-Jan R