The Refining Process

It’s 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 1, 2017, and I’m retouching some of the pictures I took of my twin brother’s proposal last weekend at the Dallas Arboretum. I’m working in Adobe Lightroom for the first time and trying to incorporate a few tricks I learned while attending a photography course in the Texas Hill Country. One of my biggest takeaways from the course was learning the importance of post-processing because, like the diamond on my future sister-in-law’s ring finger, a picture moves from raw form to final brilliance through a meticulous refining process.

My interest in photography has as much to do with promoting my book, Maven the Raven: Tree of Life, as it does with my desire to capture memorable snapshots of nature. In my opinion, the two go hand in hand in building my “author’s platform,” or my visibility as an author. The better my photography skills, the better the pictures I can incorporate into my website, blogs, and social media in hopes of reaching a larger audience.

I started taking wildlife photos during my trips to Costa Rica and Alaska back in the summer of 2015. I realized then that photography is not as easy as it looks. There’s an art to taking pictures that I’m only beginning to appreciate, and it’s why I decided to invest my time into learning the nuances that go into making a great photo.

The four-day course taught me many of the basics, such as lighting, exposure and composition. But for a writer currently in the middle of the editing process, I had a special appreciation for what happens after a picture is taken. Unlike photography, however, there’s no proprietary writing software that can turn a blemished manuscript into a polished work of art. That’s why it pays to have a good editor, or in my case, three of them.

I was introduced to my first editor by a woman who I met in Belize last June. I was on a writing sabbatical for the month, and she was in town visiting from Houston. What stood out to me the most was that she shared the same unique name as one of my main characters. We kept in contact, and I remember receiving a text from her a few months later with a link to a Reddit post.

The post was from a freelance editor in Texas who was accepting new clients, but the only problem was that I hadn’t planned on hiring an editor so soon. My strategy at that time was to sign with an agent, secure a book deal, and then start the formal editing process. But my plan quickly went awry when I discovered how long the editing process can take.

Come to find out that some editors reserve anywhere from two to four months to complete their edits, while others are in such high demand that you have to reserve a spot on their schedules months in advance—assuming your quality of writing meets their standards and they are willing to accept your work. These timelines forced me to rethink my strategy, so I reached out to the editor, a woman named Catherine, and sent her a copy of my manuscript at the end of September.

Three months later, the day after Christmas, I received Catherine’s edits. She was tough on me but offered great advice on what I needed to do to bring out the story’s full potential. Her final remark was, “There’s a difference between a kid’s book and a book that is great for kids, and I think this has real potential to be the latter, making it also a good read for children and certain adults who, like myself, read kid’s books all the time. I think if you follow my advice you’ll have something really special here.”

Catherine’s comments were very encouraging to read, and I reluctantly put my literary agent search on hold despite the fact that several agents had asked me to send them additional material during the Las Vegas writer’s workshop I attended at the end of November. For the next month, I worked nights and weekends to implement Catherine’s suggestions and, once complete, decided it was best to seek a second opinion.

You might recall from one of my previous blogs titled “All In” that the presenter at the Las Vegas workshop was a guy named Chuck. I had initially hired Chuck to edit my query letter and synopsis—both of which are necessary evils required by most literary agents. I grew to appreciate his straightforward approach, and I decided to hire him to edit the latest version of my manuscript.

But I wasn’t satisfied with just two editors. Catherine and Chuck are both secular editors, but I also wanted the perspective of a Christian editor, too, because of the spiritual themes I incorporated into my book. My third and final editor is a woman named Jamie who, prior to going into business for herself, had previously worked for the largest Christian publisher for more than a decade.

After passing her pre-screen process, Jamie accepted my work and started editing my manuscript in March. I also decided to send the latest and greatest version back to my initial editor, Catherine, to reread a second time, and I’m now anxiously awaiting each of their responses. I expect to have their edits back by the middle of May and will continue the refining process at that time, all the while imagining how much easier it would be if Adobe created a version of Lightroom for writers...

Follow me on Instagram at @Joshua_Maven or @HonchotheVan, on Twitter @MaventheRaven or Facebook at Facebook/TheLastImperial.