Editing Chasing 25: The Part Nobody Talks About
Starting the editing process feels a lot like being back in school and realizing the homework never actually ends.
I chose this. I love this. Writing and creating and building stories is the thing I would pick every single time if you gave me the choice again. But editing? Editing is the part I would skip if I could. It is the necessary evil of the whole process and I say that with full awareness that it is also one of the most important parts.
I picked the editing back up last week for Chasing 25 and I would be lying if I said I was not walking into it with a knot in my stomach.
Here is the thing about editing that nobody really prepares you for. No matter how many times you go through your own manuscript you are going to miss things. I know this because I lived it with Prompt To Grow. I went back after it was already published and found embarrassing mistakes on almost every page of the first edition. Some I went back and fixed. Some I did not. And as much as that stings, I have made peace with it.
You know when I notice the errors I missed? Once the book is already published and already in someone's hands. Every single time. Without fail.
That is not a failure. That is just being human. And honestly it is also proof that the work is real, that it came from a real person doing their best with what they had at the time. You can watch my work evolve if you go back far enough. The mistakes are part of that evolution. They show where I was when I made them.
But it does not make the editing process any less anxiety inducing.
There is something specific about editing Chasing 25 that makes it harder than editing a journal. This book is personal in a way that my previous work was not. Every chapter I go back through I am not just looking for errors. I am sitting inside moments from my own life and deciding how much of the truth to leave on the page. That is a different kind of work. It requires a different kind of nerve.
I am genuinely excited to get this book into the world. July 20th feels real and close and terrifying in the best possible way. But between now and then there is a manuscript that needs me to sit with it, page by page, and do the uncomfortable work of making it the best version of itself I am capable of producing on my own.
No professional editor. No team. Just me, the manuscript, and a lot of coffee.
That is indie publishing in its most honest form.
And I would not trade it for anything -- even on the days it feels like homework. 🖤
Book Launch date July 20, 2026
