Paying the Piper ... but who calls the tune?

I have published EBooks, painted some pictures and have written countless poems - my work has been well received and has amassed over a hundred excellent reviews. Although I am the first to admit that good editing is essential before publication, I ask why you have to pay? I didn't.

I have recently read an article from a writer who paid over $5,000 for editing and is completely dissatisfied with the outcome. 

I have paid nothing and am completely satisfied, thank you. 

I think it depends on how you view your creation. Me, I am always open to advice, but like the paintings on my website, the poems and short stories published here and there, I want my novels to reflect exactly who I am - my style - my writing and my choice of words. I pay attention to grammar and word usage and give my work a thorough check before publication, but at the end of the day, it is my work, and that is important to me.

Judging from my string of excellent reviews, I guess my readers like the way I do things.

I'm told I'm arrogant because I will not pay for these so called pre-publication professional services - but why should I? Why should any of us? I've seen too many professionally edited books with simple errors which could have been picked up with a built-in spelling check.

I believe writers could do a lot better for the industry as a whole if they would use their experience to help other writers with publicity, promotion and minor puntuation corrections. I  do this all the time without fee or hope of remuneration - Wouldn't the writing profession be better off, if there were more out there like me? 
I want to write and write some more and enjoy even more success - but I am fed up to the teeth with these so called professional editors, designers and the rest, who insist on charging an exorbitant fee before a writer receives a penny from sales.

Hey, I’ve downloaded this photo-album program. It has facial recognition and has picked me out on a thousand or more photos, which have been taken during the last ten years or so. Some of these were posed, but there are a fair few when I’ve been in the background and not always aware the photo was been taken. The remarkable thing is that on every single photograph, I am smiling. That shouldn’t really come as a surprise because every single day of my life over the last twenty years has been full of joy. 

I have a wonderful, loving, supportive wife, who has given me a son and daughter who, together with their spouses, would make any father proud. We have half dozen grandchildren ranging in age from our recently married twenty-four year old granddaughter through to our three year old, each of whom fills our hearts with joy each weekend we see them. My home is warm and comfortable and my garden a delight to the eye, so it’s no wonder I have a smile for every occasion – 

Then again, it might be trapped wind. Hmmm-

I never want an August/September like that again.

We all celebrated the arrival of my great nephew  but within hours, celebrations turned to anxiety as our niece was rushed into intensive care - it was tense for several days but all turned out well.

As soon as one was better, another fell ill. A simple wasp stung my wife on her toe. Her foot swelled like a balloon. Within hours, she was in intensive care with septicemia. I've never seen a reaction like that and the way blisters spread on her toe, then foot, then leg - it seemed at one point that nothing could stop it short of her losing her foot, but again, at the last moment, the antibiotics kicked in.

No sooner than my wife is back home, disaster three hit our family. Our daughter had a house fire. She had put the washing on timer so that it would come on in the early hours of the morning, and be ready before she went to work. She woke to a house of thick black smoke - they got out just in time - daughter, son-in-law and grandson, but the fire destroyed the kitchen and smoke had penetrated everywhere. They arrived on our doorstep in the early hours with nothing but their nightclothes and buckets full of tears.

They've stayed with us and had a night or two in a hotel.

You can imagine the strain that these episodes have put on our family, but we know how to love and support each other through these crises so at the end of the day, they become a mere blip in history.

Even the darkest cloud has a silver lining. Our niece recovered sufficiently to bring her baby to our house in time for his great-great-granddads birthday. My wife has been left with nothing more than a scar and slight limp which will soon disappear, and the insurance has paid for a deep clean of the house and all their clothes, so now our daughter and her family are as fresh as daisies, albeit, for the next few weeks, without a kitchen.

Thank you to all our friends both here and the U.S.A. for your prayers and thank God for His gift of a close, loving and supportive family.