Ten years of correcting the mistakes
Carefully filling in the plot holes
And making sure no words were overused
Of listening to her own work
Read and reread by a robot voice
To spot the typos and misplaced commas
Then copying and pasting back and forth
Into the editing software and deciding
What to change and what to keep the same
Ten years of speaking to readers
Finding out what they like
What makes them throw the book across the room
Building up potential readers
And setting the book for pre-order
Then printing out page by page
To check for any rogue mistakes
Because the eyes spot errors on paper
That they don’t seem to notice on screen
Ten years of hard work
Before she finally submitted
Feeling proud and sure of her book
But the reviews and comments came
Could do with some editing, should have been proofread
Didn’t you even run it through spellcheck?
Should be American spellings
Even though it’s clearly set in England
And there isn’t a single American character
Ten years of tracking them all down
Edit this she said as she carved each word
Into their flesh, so they would never forget
She slammed their heads through their computer screens
How do you like my UK spellings now?
She stood back and admired her work
Sure that it was good this time
She suddenly felt inspired to write crime fiction
About a writer who gets her revenge
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