RM Ahmose Fiction Writer

 The Writing Process

   At the start of writing the book I managed first to get published, I had little concern for readability of the text. I was still in college term-paper "mode," and wrote those fictional accounts as though the lines were for a college professor. Another blatant mistake I made was attempting to inject humor into the material. At the time of those first writings, I was not aware of how delicately one must tread while trying to be funny in print with total strangers. The latter, of course, are the people a writer hopes to reach on mass scale. That which might excite chuckles from folks who reliably enjoy your humor does not translate--reliably--to laughs with people who are graciously testing your material and who are being very evaluative in the process.

    But, I plodded on to completion of the two tales comprising book one. To my great dismay, I discovered at that point that producing a manuscript is just the beginning of what is by nature a long trial. Having the stamina to reread it from start to finish, trying to spot and change the blatant errors is herculean in itself. And yet even that first new perusal would be only the beginning of a series of self edits.

    Unfortunately, after the fourth, I tired of self editing and convinced myself that the fourth version was good enough. Of course, it wasn't--not really. When a writer, or prospective writer, has not the wherewithal to hire a good professional editor, the only satisfactory self editing can only occur at

the end of perahps ten episodes of rereading, some of which need to be months apart.

    So, as indicated, I managed to find a publisher for the first book. Apparently, those folks thought the storyline, plot, imaginativeness of the situations presented, and the surprise, non-telegraphed endings were good enough to attract attention of some readers. To a degree, they were right. But, oh, how I've spent distressed periods wishing I had taken more time to edit the lines of that first book, especially concerning the first story included therein.

    Then, some time later, to my utter surprise, PublishAmerica actually sent out e-mails to its authors, alerting us of the opportunity to make editorial changes to books published through them. I hopped on the "train" immediately. So now, the "second editions" of Dark Tales to Light the Way and R.M. Ahmose Presents More Grim Tales to Enlighten promise to be slightly improved versions of the originals. Ironically, that means that the fact that those two didn't sell well, initially, is a good thing. I can take comfort in the fact that not a lot of those first editions are floating around, standing as testaments to my initial failure to realize the importance of patience and dogged, repeated redacting.

    Now, all I have to do is muster the energy to look over that which I've just written about the writing process. I'm sure I'll find that even the brief material above is in need of some alteration, to improve its message.

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