A New Creative Outlet

I love to read.  I feel like I must admit that the Twilight series is what delivered my passion for reading back to me.  After returning to school a little later in life, I only read textbooks for so long that I forgot the joy you can find in building some one's whole world inside your head, while reading a great book! Once I finished the Twilight series (and developed a healthy attraction to both shape shifting wolves and sparkly vampires), I moved on to the Sookie Stackhouse novels, devouring them in no time.  Then, I branched out.  Hesitant at first, I stayed with more vampire series and then eventually moved on to paranormal related stories.  There is one thing that I find in EVERY book I read.  I find this in each book partly because humans do the writing; the thing I find in every book I read is....MISTAKES!!!! Everyone makes mistakes, there's nothing wrong with the act of making error, but I always thought that the job of a proofreader/editor was to correct the mistakes and make the author look good! 

Some books contain way more mistakes than others but inevitably every book has them!  While I am reading, if they are minor mistakes, or if the story is THAT good, I can overlook a lot but sometimes it's a deal breaker - I have literally sat a book down, and either never to picked it back up (if the mistakes are too numerous to get by) or left it down for a really long time.  Which leads me to announce my new creative outlet.  OK, so this may not be construed as a "creative outlet" for some but I am over the moon with excitement!  I have always wanted to proofread a book, before it is published.  You could say it's on my "bucket list." 

After reading one of my many vampire tales I noticed that the author was on Facebook.  Sooo, I looked her up, I friend requested her and I wrote her a long private message!  I asked her questions about the book writing process, publishing and, of course, proofreading.  My friend request was accepted right away, but my message never garnered a response.  After two weeks, I brushed it off and thought, "oh well she must not be into sharing info and helping someone out like that."  Lo and behold, some more time passed and I actually got a response.  Turned out that my message went into some security file and she totally overlooked it.  She felt bad and returned a very nice and very lengthy reponse answering all my questions and sharing a wealth of information with me!  We exchanged several messages and at the end of that string of correspondence I was a wee bit deflated.  I had gathered that most proofreading is done in 2 days, fast turn around.  I knew that this would never come to fruition for me because I am not a speed reader! (Now, my friend Kim, I think she could read the Bible in an afternoon - yes, I am exagerating but she reads really fast!)  I thanked the author profusely for sharing her knowledge with me and I started to let that dream go.



THEN, almost a month later I get an email from the same author.  She says she is trying to determine her release date for the 3rd book in her series and wondered how long it would take me to proof it for her.  I was confused, then I remembered, I never told her that I wasn't a speed reader, how kind of her to think of me though.  When I told her that I had to let that dream go she looked back through our messages and admitted to seeing where I had gotten that impression.  Come to find out, 2 days is usually what the big publishing houses can deliver but for "Indie Authors," they can afford more time than that!!! Can you guess my reaction...I was overjoyed, elated, brimming with excitement!!! She agreed to my request of a week and would send me a copy shortly.

Sooooo, tonight concludes my week and I am so excited that I have actually gotten to proofread a book before it is published!  I enjoy proofreading so much and I actually have fun doing it.  I know this may seem small and insignificant to most, but it makes me feel great knowing that someone may read this book and enjoy the read without focusing on a mistake that otherwise may have been there glaring them in the face, daring them not to set the book down!

Now that I have concluded my role as a proofreader, this week, I can go back and...

Hide n' Go Scrap!