Hello, Friends.
As always, I currently have five different books and stories in varying stages of complete; not to mention the future stories constantly sparking around in the lunatic asylum I call my mind.
In between laboring over those, I had a chance to go back and look over a few of my earlier works. Before I continue on with my public apology, let me just say that I have, since The Tenderfoot’s Guide and The Paramedic, learned a great deal about all those important things I appear to have been lacking at the time of the writing of those books: namely punctuation, syntax, spelling and a whole host of the more important ingredients required to create an enjoyable experience for the reader.
To all those who purchased those two well intended, yet poorly edited works, I offer you my most heartfelt and sincere apologies. Ignorance is my only defense.
I’d like to think I’ve come a long way since those two bell ringers. The Tenderfoot’s Guide was written back in nineteen-ninety-nine, and The Paramedic in twenty-oh-four. In that time, I’ve taken my desire and passion to write-and write better-a whole lot more seriously, and have been on a never ending quest to alleviate the error of my ways. That’s not to say that I now consider myself a walking version of the Chicago Manual of Style. Far from it; although I do adhere to it much more closely these days.
I recently had a colleague, far more versed in syntax and punctuation than I, read through a polished copy of one of the books I’m currently working on. I also asked her to read over The Paramedic. She chose to review the Paramedic first. God love her and her newly acquired drinking problem and self induced baldness, but she persevered. Thankfully, she was nearing the end of her edit when she threw noose over her dining room chandelier and stood, inebriated and bald, on the chair below it.
Ok, it wasn’t quite that bad, but suffice it to say that she was, at best, appalled. She suggested I pursue a career in the telemarketing extended auto warranties and be forever banned from ever putting words to paper again. If there were a writer’s prison, with readings from the style and basic English rule manuals spewed forth at an earth shattering volume twenty-four-seven, she would have sentenced me to life there at that very moment.
Then I passed her the latest book I’m currently in the finishing stages of. To say she was both amazed and relieved would be an understatement. According to her, now on a prescription for a mild mood altering drug, my work has gone from unintelligibly psychotic to smooth and somewhat polished. Of course, her bill for services rendered was written in crayon so you decide whether her critique was credible.
The point of this self inflicted diatribe is that, regardless of the fact that I felt, at the time, that I was putting my heart and soul into those books, I didn’t have all the tools I needed to make them worthy of the readers who bought them. I let them down. Again, my deepest apologies.
Oh a high note, I have since gone to great lengths to correct my shortcomings. I’ve attended classes, seminars, read more books than I care to remember and learned to pay much closer attention to detail. I’ve even joined a writers group. Simple things like punctuation, in the wrong places, can change the entire thought you were trying to relay…and leave you wide open for some very insulting and spirit killing comments! Trust me on this.
To atone for past transgressions, I’ve decided to revise The Paramedic to correct the multitude of faux pas and to ensure that my first effort isn’t understood to be a harbinger for the doom of the following two books in the series, Cast Adrift, written in twenty-ten and The Never Ending Nightmare, written in twenty-eighteen. Neither should be immediately looked over just because of the nightmare of editing The Paramedic was. I humbly state here that both were written with a much higher understanding of the craft and far more attention to detail. Both are much more heavily polished and edited with a much improved understanding of the aforementioned elements that I so desperately lacked in nineteen-ninety-nine and twenty-oh-four.
Let ye without sin cast the first stone! Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them. The quotes for forgiveness are legion, which tells me that I’m not the only transgressor. Wait. One more. To err is human….. Ok, I’m done.
My heartfelt gratitude to those of you who suffered through the terrible editing job I allowed into print with The Paramedic. I pray that hasn’t caused you to shy away from the two sequels. I can assure you that the saga continues, and is, without question, much easier on the eyes and the mind, and they’re well worth the read.
So in closing, keep an eye out for the revised Paramedic coming soon, as well as a couple of others, not related to the series, soon to follow. The muse has been upon me of late and I’ve taken full advantage. Given my predisposition to psychoses, I have to get them out of my head before that big iron door slams shut and I end up wearing a helmet and licking bus windows.
As always, I wish you peace, love and happiness all the days of your lives.
Brian
Brian Greenleaf 