Rushing To Publish
Advice to New Authors
By Craig Faris
So, you are writing your first novel. That's quite a goal and best of
luck with it. You may be a natural at storytelling and technique, but most of
us are not. If this is your first attempt at writing, my best advice is to set
the novel aside and try your hand at short stories or something easier like poems,
essays, or articles. Writing is a lot like singing… we all think we know what
we are doing, and some of us might be pretty good at it, but like singing,
writing takes practice. Lots and lots of practice!
If you have already completed a book or a short story and feel that
you already have all the practice you need, don't
rush to publish. Make sure you find a "professional" editor to go
through it with a nit comb before you put it out there. Why? Because people
will read it and they will find and point out all of those tiny errors that you missed. My biggest
errors are missing words... not important words, just those little extra words
like “a” or “of” or “is.” Nothing ruins your day like seeing all of your
wonderful 5-stars reviews, spoiled by that nasty one-star review that points
out all of our ignorance in grammar and spelling. Unfortunately those reviews
are the one's people seem to read the most and remember.
Believe me when I say that I'm not trying to throw cold water on your writing
efforts. By all means, we need to write more because practice makes perfect. I’m
just speaking from my own experience, so perhaps you can avoid my mistakes.
