The first day I held MY book in MY hands :)

The day I held my book for the first time was amazing. But boy did I hate my book for a few  months before that feeling of joy and accomplishment. 

See when I finished typing the last page, I really thought I was done. But I should have known better, especially since when I was working for a newspaper, a little article of less than 500 words would sometimes take over 10 rewrites before an editor's approval, but I was blinded by joy. I thought I was done when the real work had not started. 

Revising was just number one of a long list of tasks I had to accomplish before I could hold my book in my hands. 

And here is one big mistake I made - there are probably many more, but  for this post, I will just focus on this one: I was not patient at all. 

I didn't wait long enough to revise, proofread and/or to fact-check. As soon as I had finished to write that last page, I went back to the beginning and started fixing. And boy did it need fixing. 

See my book is not about schizophrenics with dual personality, so why did I have characters called two different names in the same chapter?

Thankfully, all the names are right now. Of course they are typos that nobody caught, not me, not my mom, not the proofreader, and not the formatter, but at least my characters's names are correct.  

So here is what I am saying: I know all  you want to do is jump up and down with joy - go ahead, jump - but let your manuscript rest. You really ought to let it sit for a few weeks, possibly I would say 6 months. Let it breath, let yourself breath - I know It is not easy, not easy at all, especially since all of your friend are harassing you about when will the  book be ready. 

Ignore them. Most of them won't even buy it. Yep that's also something you need to be prepared for. 90% of your friends and family will not buy your book. They will ask every day when the book will be ready, and then .... NADA. So don't worry about them. 

I learned my lesson and my next book, I took my sweet time letting it rest. I finished writing it last year and started proofreading in January.