confession of a messy writer

Published on by ortensia

While I spent the week feeling miserable for myself, my gang spent it instead badly concealing their satisfaction in seeing me incapable of verbally giving out.
Last Sunday, I woke up aphonic. Two fireballs had moved in inside my throat and still seemed to have no intention of moving out. On top of this, aches and pains spread all over my body.
Spending the week feeling physically miserable in some way brought me to feel psychological miserably too. I was overwhelmed with things to do for the release of the new book but I was also overwhelmed by the comparison between this book and my debut novel.
It is no secret that every novice has some faults, but the mistakes I realised I did are haunting me, starting with trusting some so-called professional for its proofreading and publication.
I won’t hide that over the months it became an obsession. I walk around the village feeling the eyes of the local on me saying, “here it is the sloppy author. what an idiot!”
I started to believe that nobody will buy any other of my books and that my reputation was ruined. As more pleased I grow with Black Souls and the beginning of vol 1 of The Seacross Misteries, and as more, I feel in need to justify myself in front of my readers and explain things as they are about Fields Of Lies. Sabina the writer has been contaminated by Ortensia the queen of the bad typo. I had to do something, mainly after I soooo much enjoyed my fifteen minutes of fame and glory during the super fun interviews with Dominique (3Cstyle.com) and Victoria (raynotbradbury.com). No denying it, I felt a real VIP…. until reality stroke. But can I let my mishap ruin all the work I ‘ve done so far? No, no and no. I have a five years business plan. One/ books a year and if nothing happens, I can always go back to be a desperate housewife, that if only would be like the one of those living in Wisteria lane, it might be much busier and criminal than in any book. But that only tv, I am walking my dogs for nearly twenty years and i still never found one single cadaver on our way. Come on, every dog walker find at list a corpse in his life according to the movies. Maybe I walk the wrong paths.
Anyway back to my torments, the decision was taken, I unpublished the book and with the help of a friend I started to re-proofreading the whole fecking thing as obviously amending mistakes here and there, when they spotted, as I’m doing for nearly a year, doesn’t work.

At the end of a week of physical and psychological burden, I publically acknowledged my faults and my naiveness, in the hope that honesty pays back. I went to the doctor too, and guess what? I ‘ve nothing that some paracetamol and rest can not cure.
Being astrologically speaking a Taurus, first I acted and then I asked for advice.
They say never ask a question you might not like the answer……nothing is truer and, in fact, the travelling husband didn’t agree with me.
“No honey, you deny, always. Till the end”, his actual words.
I blamed his attitude to the fact that he is the CIO of an international insurance, and God only knows what kind of things happen in those offices. Still, his words threw me back in the anguish I had eventually gotten rid of, after my “coming out”. I mean I know it might sound unprofessional, but everybody makes mistakes, the important thing is to learn from them.
That evening I went to bed troubled, and in the middle of the night, I woke up in cold sweat. I looked at the man lying beside me, and I suddenly wondered what he really meant by “deny till the end”. Should have I read more in those words? Actually, that is exactly what a long-time friend of ours did when caught cheating by his wife, he denied the most obvious of the evidence.
Those words in the mouth of an Italian middle age man can only be suspicious. Even more suspicious, if I thunk at his tendency to buy identical shirts in style and colours, and socks all of one colour. In twenty years of marriage I actually never thought anything about this peculiarity of the travelling husband, until last week. Last week when I was on my own and in desperate need of distracting myself with some tv program that didn’t require much brain activity to be understood and whose dialogues could be easily read through lips as mu cough covered most of the sound,  I watched this movie about a love triangle. The protagonist, in his tidiness, always changed his shirt before going back home to the wife, who never noticed and suspected a thing because he only wore shirts of the same style and colour. He kept a few spare at the mistress’s  place and that was it.

Fields Of Lies is suddenly not my worry anymore, besides I am fixing it for good, and neither is the launch of Black Souls. I only have one concern now: my marriage.
“Honey do you have a mistress?”, I asked after gently pinching the husband on the arm to wake him up.
“No, silly. That would be far too complicated. I have no time for this stuff. Can I go back to sleep now?”
What a relief, now I can go back to sleep too and keep worrying about Black Souls being typo-wise impeccable and my readers still trusting my writing and all those little things normally crowding into my head.

Happy Week End Everybody.

https://www.sabinagabriellicarraraauthor.com/

Advertisement

39 thoughts on “confession of a messy writer”

  2. I hope you’re feeling better soon and I’m so glad (human) viruses can’t be spread via the internet otherwise all my friends would be blaming me for getting them sick! Hahaha! Anyway, don’t stress yourself over Field of Lies. As we say in my home, shit happens. Everyone makes mistakes and in my opinion your proof reader is at fault and should be shot. No, just teasing. He/she definitely needs a swift kick in the derriere! Snort. Feel better, friend! 💜💜💜💜

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  7. Ah, the twisted mind of a novelist …… I’ve had a few manuscripts knocked back lately…… after reading your article….. I now think that’s it’s probably for the best ,….. and I’m quickly losing interest, anyhow……. after my health of the last 2 years, I think just a few published poems will do me these days…. my health is now coming first….. as I try to slow my system down, from writing too many poems………I hope you are recovering Ortensia….take of yourself my dear…xxx

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. Hope you are feeling better! If a “problem” can be retyped, it’s not a problem at all. Head up and never think you are a failure! It takes courage to expose yourself to the public who will always criticise rather than praise. Your husband doesn’t have a mistress! Now that’s another reason for a celebration. Mix some black seeds (black cumin) with honey. It does wonders with throat ache and it can bring your voice back in no time. ❤

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. Ortensia – I noticed no slop and only ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ greatness reading Fields of Lies😊. I couldn’t put the book down and ended up staying up till 3 in the morning to finish it. Hope you are feeling better❤️

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Dwight you are so kind that tears are filling my eyes. Special copy of black souls for you as soon is out😘 I’m better with my throats but can’t scroll off myself the feeling of being general unwell and this terrible pain to my kidney and legs is starting to really taking the toll on me. I’m afraid I ll have to get those antibiotics if it doesn’t oass🤷🏻‍♀️

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      2. There is worst….that’s my mantra😉and in fact now I have to get those kids to school and those dogs to the beach 🙄have great day Dwight 💗

        Like

  12. 5 years business plan sounds great! It should be so, because very difficult to become a bestseller just with 1 book (if you are an indie)… or who knows, u may go traditionally later on. Anyway- creating a story, a hero & a real product (will be ur legacy) = is absolutely thrilling 🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️🕺🕺🤸‍♂️🎊🎊🎊🤸‍♂️🎉🎉🎥🎥🎥☃️☃️☃️☃️☃️

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  13. It can be a lonely life being a writer Sabina, more downs than ups. That’s if you let the bad bits get the better of you. Hopefully we all learn and improve in time. And we also realise that, unless we are truly exceptional writers or we get a lucky break, we probably won’t be making the best-sellers’ lists. Most important is that you don’t fall out of love with writing. Happy New Year and look forward to book #2.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you Roy ,that’s encouraging. I don’t aim at best selling list and for the moment I’m glad I have a little bit of time to eventually do what I love and I’m really grateful I don’t have to pay the bills with it😂

      Like

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s