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As my novel is with an editor at the moment, the second to last one, I am a bit fearful of the marked-up manuscript, which I will get back in a couple of weeks. The mark-ups should contain any story issues as well as a spell-check. But when I was shopping around, I provided the first couple of pages to get an estimate. One of the responses was: That’s a lot of work.

Not only got my ego got bumped down, but my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach as well. 

Several thoughts went through my head, ranging from ‘but it already went to an editor before’ and ‘It’s that bad?’.

I have been living and working in English-speaking countries since 2001. That’s almost all of my adult life and longer than I have lived in Germany. 

When I talk, I feel very proficient. Sure, I still get ‘there are you from’, but over the years, my accent has smoothed out, and commonly used phrases come easily. 

These days I am super excited when I learn a new English word. I usually try to test it out as often as I can.

I still remember when I started writing in English. After work one day, I pulled out a draft of my first ever novel, which was a RomCom and in German. As I already lived in England at the time, I had trouble continuing to put my words down in my native langue as I was surrounded by English all day long. So, I rewrote my first writing project into my second language.

After finishing the first draft and re-read my written words, I felt that the story lends itself more to a movie. So, I signed up for a screenplay writing course at City, University of London, which went rather well. I finished my first screenplay and am proud of what I wrote. I continued putting words down to the idea of what now has become Jessie Grean. 

After several revisions, feedback from friends, and paid two editors, I decided to run my manuscript through Grammarly to help me smooth out anything which I have overlooked. But this one sentence, from this one editor, not meant to be an insult, really made me doubt my endeavor. I had to re-learn citation rules as a surprise, surprise; they are slightly different in German. I had to re-learn where and when to put commas in sentences: Different languages, different rules, smooth out Germanism in English, false friends, and of course, homonyms.

After I let the comment sink in, I shrugged the words off. Not because they were false, but because I am trying to correct my second language. I know that there is still more to learn and am working on making my book the best it can be, with the help of editors.

However, this blog is only edited by me with the help of Grammarly and MS Word spelling correction. So, I take full credit for all misspellings, missing s’, wrong tense or Germanism, and misplaced commas.