THE SEARCH IS ON FOR AN EDITOR
I’m in the process of finding an editor for my next novel. I am in the process of searching for answers, looking for outside help. I am in the need of expert assistance for something I can’t do as well as they could. This happens so often in our world that we don’t even know it happens so often, as it happens. I don’t bake my own bread, darn my socks or remove my own bodily waste from my house. This is all done for me. All I have to do is complete a transaction.
In the case of the latter transaction, my toilet often runs a bit afterwards, so I have to jiggle the handle to make it stop. It bothers me to have to do so after I ‘ve left the room to return here to write. I can hear the annoying running noise from at my laptop two rooms away. I sigh or swear, get up, and go back to the bathroom to jiggle the handle. This interruption usually costs me a thought or two. It may have cost the world the thought that would have led to a literary masterpiece. Or not. The point is, I have finally taken action to produce the resources to do something about that toilet. I now have the money get it fixed. Why take any more chances on denying the world some of my wisdom, a great novel or an insightful blog post?
NO LEGAL REQUIREMENT FOR AN EDITOR
The running toilet has also taken its turn in distracting me from finding an editor for my second novel, Back outta the World. An editor is a must for any writer- what a boring sentence– see what I mean? Anyway, in this day of direct or self publishing, you can press “publish” on Amazon or your platform of choice and off your work goes in the infinity of the virtual book shelf. There is no law that says that your masterpiece needs an editor. I am not here to criticize anyone who had done this. It has occurred to me to do this with BotW many times. I could do it today and be done with BotW. But, it would bother me. BotW would not be the book it could be. It would bother me, much like the noise a running toilet produces from several rooms away.
The process of finding an editor goes on. But I did find someone to fix the toilet. In fact, I decided to redo the whole bathroom. I had three different companies visit the house and each looked over my bathroom in their own fashion. A full bathroom remodel amounts to a substantial investment. I have to mention here that my downstairs bathroom was once a back porch. It was made into a full bathroom sometime before we moved in. Hence one wall faces the outside. It’ s the wall with the water pipes and so it freezes when the temps drop enough. Each of the three companies and I talked process, price and the people who do the work. All three companies had faucets, shower shells, and towel racks. But only one took the interest to ask a couple more questions, to get understand the origin of the bathroom itself.
I WANT SOMEONE TO DO THE DIRTY WORK
I could not answer some questions. Hey, I just live here. So I led them to the crawlspace off the basement that was under the bathroom. It was there that one of the guys, using his phone for a light, crawled into my crawlspace. He then crawled, of course, to the far wall. There, now on his knees, he found a piece of plywood that allowed access the the floor under the bathroom. I did not know that space existed and I’m into my third decade here. He removed it and was able to examine that.
After he managed to extract himself, brush off the dust and shut of his phone light, he told me things about my bathroom I did not know before. He told me that there was an old heating tape that ran around the pipes. He also noticed a damper valve half closed on the heating duct that led to the bathroom. No wonder I had been showering in a meat locker for twenty years. He opened it all the way. I would be warmer the next time I stepped in and out of my shower. The work hadn’t even started on the room and already this company had improved my bathroom. He took the time to understand the the dynamics behind why the bathroom was cold. Fixing a running toilet would be no problem for this company. We had a deal.
AN EMOTIONAL DECISION
That is what I am looking for in finding an editor, people. I don’t just want a transaction. When we bought this house those two plus decades ago, the realtor said something I have always remembered. She said that buying a house was an “emotional decision“. So is parting will a novel and handing it over to an editor. This not just a transaction to me. If I am going to do that, I want an editor to go into the novel’s crawlspace, find things I never knew existed, and make the book better. No luck so far. Maybe, when I’m no longer distracted by a running toilet, I will be able to find such an editor.
