Next month, my hometown is throwing what they call the "Gallery of the Arts". It's basically this huge gathering of artists to showcase what they do and sell some of what they make. It mostly attracts painters and photographers, but crafters show up too and you get a pretty wide array of talent. I participated years ago as a Junior artist and actually won an award (shocking!).
All of this to say: they've never had a writer. So my parents and I were talking about it a few nights ago and decided to look into it. Upon asking the director of the program about it, they gladly welcomed the written word into the fold, so long as I put down on the application a craft or artistic genre to technically fall into. But they'll let me sell my book there.
The gathering tends to attract a good deal of foot traffic. It's a little crazy, but I'm going to give it a shot. This naturally will require work though.
I need an editor. As I've said before, I've been looking for over a year now and applying since two summers ago to agents. For some reason, I always thought I had to go through this long, arduous process to get there. Silly me, I have friends.
One of my very good friends is incredibly good at editing. While she didn't major in writing, her mother ingrained in her brain how to properly construct, well, everything. She would be ideal to ask to edit. She thinks the story is strong and will be able to (hopefully), fly through the material and get an edited copy off to me in a few weeks, leaving me time to edit and upload a proper copy before I buy a bunch for the gallery.
So this is my advice: don't shy away from the seemingly easy answers. Even if this adventure proves fruitless, I'll have a far better polished manuscript at hand to give someone. It always helps to have a second set of eyes look over your book critically and analyze where it's strengths and weaknesses are.
Because as the writer, you can read and reread your story a million times over and you might still miss the same typo or the same grammatical error. It's why in all of my writing classes we always read each other's pieces. It gave outside advice and opinions. It also helped to catch problems that the writer might have missed.
Search for your editor. Whether it's a professional or a friend, it'll help your manuscript in the end.
Happy writing!
Currently Writing: Arthur
Currently Reading: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Currently Listening to: "Sticks and Stones" by Sigur Ros
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