After I’d laid down my first eighty thousand words, it became evident that I had something to offer which could perhaps be done as a shorter ‘non-biography’. More like an anthology of short stories.
I’d heard about writers who had ‘self-published’ so… “Why not me?”
I knew enough about white space, thought I was good at layout, had an inkling about marketing. “Why couldn’t I do it myself?” And so, even if a little deluded, I did. I had loads to learn – could and did find much in myself to criticise, certainly found I had huge dollops of pride to swallow and large amounts of patience to spread on myself – but in 2024 I did it. Although it had been one hell of a learning curve.
It was in January, I sat with my reduced 52,000 words and had my first meeting with Black Swan Printers. He almost believed I knew what I was talking about – in the end going along with my visions of grandeur and agreeing to work with me.
Taking his good advice, I amended, edited, corrected, re-wrote and re-numbered until I had 200 pages. This final draft was then proof-read by a suitably experienced friend who drew my attention to the overuse of “OK” and “of course” and “in fact”.
She also directed my attention to an inconsistent use of capitals across most of my forty chapter headings and told me to also give serious attention to NOT starting so many sentences with “And”. Later in the list of suggested alterations, I was scolded for… and I quote: “Excessive use of the word ‘ahead’… used at least eight times”!! And when talking about going off the road during a driving accident – she suggested I was more probably zig-zagging on a central reservation – and not “on a central reservoir” as I had written. There’s nothing like a professional critic to firmly put you in your place!
I didn’t even know what ‘tautology’ meant, until I saw my own words saying the same thing twice in a different way. It came as quite a shock to discover I’d claimed to live through ninety decades…. 900 years!
And as an English graduate, I was suitably humbled to find that I obviously couldn’t spell, couldn’t tell the difference between ‘chose’ and ‘choose’ – and had incorrectly used “were” instead of “was”!
Yes, the proof-reader who had originally told me there were “a few minor tweaks”, presented me with twenty-seven pages of notes, drawing my attention to so many of my errors… but it was the best lesson for putting my feet firmly back on the ground. To hell with the euphoria of finishing a book. The business end of it all now had to be cleaned up. This is what professional writing is all about – getting it right.
Although, with some slight relief, I was gently reassured that there wasn’t a single book out there which could claim to be completely perfect!
So on that note, I poured a large glass of Chateau-Neuf, before starting out on what was to be five days of corrections. It seems there was always something (even as slight as a missing apostrophe) that needed attention on almost every one of my two-hundred pages. A page at a time, I looked at every sentence and noted all that had been ‘proofed’ and made my decisions about what to keep and what to change.
Dark and dangerous, from my chapter ‘Fugitive on the Isles of Scilly’
My 1957 passage to Canada via early Cunard… memory working hard writing that section.
But by now, it was all much too late to re-write without upsetting the page numbers and paragraph layout of the whole book, I had to let some things go.
“Minor tweaks” indeed… the devil is certainly in the detail!
You can read more about Rolande and his memoir ‘Notes in my Margin’ here: https://teignmouthwriters.co.uk/rolande-burrows/
