Be yourself—a guest post

Hellooo all!! Today I have something a little different for you! Today you get a guest post! I asked my close friend and wonderful editor, Deborah, if she would be willing to "visit" my blog, so to speak. And she said yes, so I'm super excited to have her! (Also, her birthday is tomorrow . . . so can y'all help me wish her a happy birthday, too? ;)) You can visit Deborah at her blog here. Reading in June. Now go follow it. Because I told you to, that's why. ;)
Anyway, without any further ado, here she is!


Two of my favorite things to do will have to be reading and editing books. And since I have y’all’s attention, I’m just goin’ rave about them for a little bit. ;)

Reading:

You all know that moment when your favorite author releases a new book. You’ve been watching all the updates that they post for a year prior and sending them fan emails.
Well, that moment when they tell you that it’s up on Amazon and you go and order your very first copy of the book. You wait a solid two days for Amazon Prime to do its thing and then…the day it’s supposed to arrive; you don’t get anything done because you’re too busy watching the mailbox.
Oh, but that moment when you touch it for the first time. You hold it and hug it and…you don’t start reading it till the next day because you don’t want to spoil the moment of excitement. But then the next day comes and you read it in a couple hours…and finish it…for the first time…and you won’t ever get to do that again.

Okay, sorry. I didn’t mean for this to be depressing. I just wanted to say that, I feel your pain readers! Sorry, too depressing again. Let’s try a different approach.
You get a new favorite book and you can read it again and again and…still love it! I love that moment when I read a book and love it so much and I have to read it again. It’s so fun!
So I want to encourage you all to keep reading and finding new books. Reading new authors and loving their writing. And for all you writers, there are people out there that love your work, so keep writing! You never know, you could be writing someone new favorite book. ;)

Editing:

I’m going to get right to the point; when it comes to editing other people writing there is nothing more on this earth that can wow me, so to speak.
It amazes me so much when authors ask me to edit for them. When other people give you their writing to edit, that means that they trust you with their work—their prize possession—enough for you to read it and change it. It’s their work. I’ve done enough writing in my time to know that writing is not something that you can just do. It takes a lot of time, research and emotion. That makes it all the more astonishing that writers will publish their work for the world to read.
Something that I love about editing is: I can change around all those annoying mistakes you find in books before it’s actually published and you’re stuck with the errors for like…forever.
You’ve probably all have read a book that when it gets to the best part, it’s building up to the climax, and then, there’s that mistake. Reading the book before it’s published gives me a chance to fix it. Instead of reading the book right after it’s published, why not read it right before it’s publish and fix all the errors that I find just reading it like a normal book? That’s what I thought. I’ll be a proofreader and fix them. Make it easier on all those readers like me who get annoyed with those errors that stick out.

And so I did. It’s been slow, but I’ve enjoyed it immensely. Sure, I’m not perfect. There’s always going to be at least one error that you’ll miss. But if I can help an author out to make their book that much better, I’m not going to stand back and do nothing. If an author will trust me enough to give me their book before they’re brave enough to give it to the world, why would I turn them down?


Writers, keep writing. Editors, keep editing. Readers, keep reading. You are all important in the book world. If there were no writers, there wouldn’t be books. If there were no editors, we wouldn’t be able to stand the books. And if there were no readers to read the books, why are we writing?

I want to encourage you all to keep doing what you do best, even if it’s only reading. God has blessed us all with different talents, don’t try to be someone you’re not.

Be yourself, everyone else is taken.

*All pictures taken from pinterest or google images.