I hate it when I’m right. That always seemed like the strangest staying. After all, how could being right be bad? Well, as it turns out, it’s a bad thing to be right when you predict locking horns with your editor. I went through my second set of edits yesterday for the second edition of “Quest for the Red Sapphire.” Out of perhaps 20 instances where the editor and I didn’t agree the first time, I gave in on all but about 8 of them. In this set of edits, four of the previous ones where I refused to budge were sent back to me once again to change. The comments sent with them are not suitable for publication. They were also not suitable for an editor, but they were written there anyway. I must confess for such a limited number of edits I had to do a lot of walking away from the computer angrily and blowing off steam. The items up to be changed are a difference of opinion in how the main character (Linvin) would react in certain situations. I was ridiculed for these flaws in the character. The flaws were the whole point of the scene! He is a character. He has faults. They keep popping up. He is working to correct them but isn’t there yet. Why is this so hard to understand? I would stomp through the house; maybe even go for a drive and then return to look at the screen and read the demeaning comments left for me about the scene. What do you do? If you refuse again there might be a problem all the way back to the publisher since the editor is God (See yesterday’s blog). If you just give in you lose what made your character different. On 3 out of the 4 I compromised. I rewrote it closer to what he wanted but did not give away the heart of the matter I held dear. In the fourth edit I totally ignored him and left it as it was since his suggestion was, to use his verbiage, “Ridiculous.” Part of me feels like I betrayed my story but I made the best of an ugly situation. If those changes are not good enough, then that is going to be too bad because I have bent and bent and bent like a blade of grass in the wind. If I bend any more the very fiber holding me up will snap and I will not rise again. I will not let that happen. I have been open-minded and humbled but my breaking point has been reached. I will spend the rest of the day reading the previous edits to make sure they flow well and then send it back. Perhaps it is unprofessional to vent in my blog but this is MY blog and I will write what I will. I’ve tried to explain it to others around me but the reactions are usually just confusion. I’m told, “Why not just do what the editor wants and be done with it?” Simply put, if I give in on all those points there’s no point in even putting my name on it because that’s no longer my book.
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