So, you’re
tired of being stretched by continual struggles. You just want to be left alone
long enough to catch your breath. You’re not asking for much; you just want a
comfortable life. You don’t like the fact that you’re still looking for work,
dealing with a severely life-limiting health problem, trying to get your loved
ones to do what you want…
Well, sorry,
but welcome to the real world. Life often hurts. Life is rarely relaxed for
most of us. Yet, there’s method to the madness; we don’t grow if we aren’t
pushed to do so. Turn that around, and it
becomes the good news, too: we do improve when we’re
pushed beyond our self-imposed “limits”.
Gold
It’s the
most precious metal on Earth. But, it doesn’t start out that way.
An article
on a madehow.com forum, called “How Products are Made: Gold”
, lists the following steps of extracting and refining the precious metal:
- Mining
- Washing
- Filtering
- Combining it with water and grinding it up
- Separating it with chemicals
- Smelting (heating it with a substance called flux)
- Hauling away the contaminated part, called slag, or dross
Writing/Editing
The process
of self-publishing is its own kind of refiner’s fire. Yet, somehow, the initial
product is smelted into a masterpiece that might add value to many readers.
Truly
successful writers and editors must allow themselves to be pushed waaaaay
beyond the time when they wanted to be “done” with that pesky manuscript. Here
are some examples:
Joanna—self-edited her book numerous
times, yet it wasn’t enough. She is not a professional editor, and many
reviewers told her that she had quite a few mistakes. She didn’t believe them,
and she didn’t want to pay for professional editing. For one thing, she assumed
that a professional editor would charge up to a $1,000 for their services.
Jack—had me beta read a
manuscript. I told him that he had many issues with plot and characterization.
He hadn’t picked up on those issues. He had thought the characters were
developed enough.
Petra—is not a native speaker
of English. I helped her with her manuscript. She had self-edited and proofread
over and over again. Yet, she still had many issues with grammar and idiomatic
language. I spent untold hours editing and explaining my edits. Finally, we
thought the book was ready for formatting. Unfortunately, we found that,
somehow, the “final” manuscript still had errors. It was back to the drawing board.
Sally—is yet another
non-native speaker. I saw one of her articles in which she struggled with
idiomatic language. For instance, she used “to go person” instead of “go-to
person”. (Word to the wise: if you’re unsure of the idiom, don’t use it. Oh,
and please get an editor—or, at least
a beta reader that speaks English well.)
Clara—is also not a native
speaker of English. She has challenges
with syntax, informality, and repeating certain phrases too often.
Me—I am
clarity-challenged. (There, I just made up a new p.c. word! Why not?) I used to
use too many words to explain
certain experiences, which would only confuse the reader or listener more. Wait,
let me expound on what I meant by that last sentence…(Just kidding!)
After
years, I appreciate the “Just the facts, Ma’am.” attitude. However, it has taken many years, and lots of
feedback, to get me to write and think more clearly.
We
won’t even discuss how long it takes me to write and edit my blog posts. You
may still have found errors in this on.
My Conclusion
Transformation
of any kind is a tedious, but necessary, process. It’s rarely pleasant, and it’s
often more difficult than we could ever have imagined. Yet, the end result is always worth the hard work. It doesn’t
matter if the objective is a polished book, better health, a more compassionate
nature, or a job skill.
Often, when
we think we’re “done”, that’s far from the case. That homemade kids’ bracelet isn’t good enough.
We’re being molded into that $2,000
wedding set in the high-end jewelry store—if we can be patient through the
whole process.
For more on overcoming challenges,
please see my book, Accept No Trash Talk:
Overcoming the Odds.
How have you
survived the refiner’s fire?
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