On Writing and Storytelling: To Write Is Human… To Edit Forever Is Me

To Write Is Human… To Edit Forever Is Me

Hi, everyone.

One of the quirks of being both a writer and an editor is this: no matter how many times I revise my own books—whether I’m working or simply rereading for pleasure—I always manage to spot mistakes long after I thought the job was finished. It doesn’t matter if the project is a short story, a novelette, a novella, or a full-length novel. It doesn’t matter if it’s my first work of fiction or my third. I’ll go through draft after draft until I convince myself, Okay, everything’s fixed—the typos, the punctuation slips, the grammar stumbles, the accidental character-name swaps, all those mischievous publishing gremlins. Now I can finally read this like a regular person.

And inevitably, a stray typo or awkward phrase leaps off the page and reminds me why my red pen never truly retires.

Last night was no exception. While rereading Reunion: Coda, my editorial instincts kicked in yet again. In a key third-act scene, I describe Jim Garraty wearing a New York Yankees cap in one paragraph—only to switch it to a Star Wars cap in the next. A tiny continuity slip, the sort most readers would overlook or forgive, but still one of those little bloopers that somehow survives even the most obsessive read-throughs.

Sure, I could shrug it off. I’ve seen similar mistakes in books from major publishers, and none of my readers or reviewers have ever mentioned this one. But I was once a copy editor on the staff of a college newspaper—one of the best my journalism professor ever taught—and that instinct to fix things is hardwired. Once I spot a blooper, especially in a book I spent two years writing under some truly challenging circumstances, I can’t unsee it. And I certainly can’t let it stand. It’s my name on the byline, after all.

So today’s assignment is clear: update all three formats of Reunion: Coda on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing—first the Kindle edition, then the hardcover, and finally the paperback. It’s a time-consuming and sometimes exhausting process, but quality matters to me. My goal is always to give readers the best experience I can.

To those who own the print editions, I offer my sincere apologies for the oversight. I hope you’ll understand. After all, to write is human—but to edit is divine.