The Impossibility of Perfection (Or my transformation from Jackass to Unicorn)

Before I'd ever been through the editing process with any of my books, I used to read other novels and nitpick at the errors I'd find. Especially with self-pubbed books and Indie Books. My attitude was, if you're gonna publish it, then you better darn well make it PERFECT!

Quite a while ago, I had a self-pubbed author ask me to read and review her book for her. I read it, I loved the story and thought she did a great job. Her writing was fantastic...but there were a few mistakes. Only a few. So of course, doing my duty, I pointed them out in the review I left. What a jackass I was, because as time went on, and as I read more and more books (both indie and traditional) the more I realized, her few mistakes were actually not that big of a deal. They weren't. If fact, her book was one of the better edited that I've read. AND...I'd never been through the editing process myself to see exactly how hard it is to find each and every error. I assumed it was easy and that NOTHING should slip by an editor. Not even a misplaced comma. For shame. For shame.

But, I've come to the conclusion, as an author having gone through the process now several times, that there is no such thing as perfection. It's darn near impossible. I can't tell you how many rounds of edits my books go through and how many eyes take a look at it before it's released. One book had several beta readers who caught errors for me before it even made it to an actual editor, and then TWO (yes, two) different editors read and marked it. Guess what, a 3rd editor read it just recently and found a few more (albeit, tiny and hardly noticeable mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless). That's a lot of people. THAT'S a lot of well-trained, highly educated, amazing editors who missed that "parent's home" should actually be "parents' home". The horror of that misplaced apostrophe! It wasn't until the 3rd editor read it that it was caught and corrected. How is it possible that the two previous editors didn't catch it?

Because they're human. And because editing is HARD. For those of you who have gone through the process, you get it. For those of you who haven't, it's a pain in the @$$. Be prepared. I'm extremely lucky to have so many fantastic editors at my disposal through my publisher. Four? How many authors can say they had three editors review their work? Not many. Most are lucky to have one.

So I've decided that from now on, when I find a mistake in someone's book, any book, I won't let it ruin my overall reading experience again. If I don't change my attitude, then I'll never be able to read another book and truly enjoy myself. Now don't get me wrong, if there are a slew of mistakes, back to back, and an obvious need for an editor to look over the book, then yes I will point that out. But the occasional missed comma or apostrophe...I think I can let it go. But again, that's just me.

I get it now. I get how impossible it is to find every error. Even the best of the best will still make mistakes. The only thing any of us can do is STRIVE for perfection. If we can get as close as possible, then that's a job well done. Because perfect isn't going to happen.

I no longer want to be that jackass. I'd much rather be a unicorn, happy, content and less judgmental :) What do you think? Can you look past a mistake or two? Should we?

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