How Perfectionism is Creating a Second Edition of Dream of Me

When you’re a new author, there’s a lot of advice that gets thrown your way. You try to remember as much as you can, but it’s really just not possible to retain it all. Still, some sticks, and you carry it with you and apply as needed.

One of the pieces of advice that stuck with me in particular deals with perfectionism and the endless abyss of editing that awaits you if you don’t get rid of the idea of “perfect.”

Because it doesn’t exist.

There will always be a better way to say something, a more clever turn of phrase, and more grammatically correct sentence.

If you try to edit as you write, you won’t ever finish writing. If you’re constantly going back and editing your past work, you’ll never have enough time to create anything new.

Having said that, I am currently editing Dream of Me once again, and I am unapologetic about it.

In fact, I blame my partner completely.

I’ve let my debut novel rest in imperfect bliss for years. It was my first, I learned so much about self publishing and even myself in the process of writing it, and it’s far from perfect. However, I do have better skills and tools at my disposal now, namely ProWritingAid.

And my partner can’t help but tell everyone that I’m an author.

Not even just that! He tells everyone that’s literally my job.

I mean, he’s not wrong. This is what I do as my job. I’m really proud of that. But him telling people I know means they’re going to go look me up and probably buy my books and then maybe possibly see something that’s not perfect and doesn’t live up to the hype.

At least that’s what my worry brain tells me.

Sooooo… I did some thinking, and I made a list. Because of course I did. I wrote down the pros and cons of editing my debut novel, Dream of Me, again.

The primary con is that it will take away time that I want to dedicate to finishing When the Snow Falls, the second book in the same series as Dream of Me. It will also take time away from some of the other books I want to get published in 2025—Irish Brothers Trilogy, I’m looking at you.

However, the primary reason to do at least some editing is because it’s what people are most likely to read from me first at this point in my career.

I want it to be good.

I want it to be as good as it can be. So that even if they read it and think it seems novice or definitely like a first book from an unseasoned author, it will be a grammatically, structurally better book at the very least.

I do have some pride afterall.

Now, in order to not take away too much time from my other writing projects or the Crash Course for romance authors I just launched, I decided to give myself the week to work on a very high level proofread of Dream of Me. Nothing too in depth, and nothing that would take away from the way it’s written. I don’t want to erase what makes it special as a debut novel, even if those are things that scream I’m a green author. Just enough to polish it up in the way I’d wished I could have when I first published it.

So thanks to my partner and perfectionism, the second edition of Dream of Me will be available everywhere books are sold sometime this month!

Thanks, I guess. XD