Back in January, I decided to sit down with my babies…my babies being all eight books in the Emmie & Friends series, including my newest one, ALWAYS ANTHONY. I did this because I have a terrible memory, and I realized I should re-familiarize myself with the series and characters before writing Book 9. Sometimes I lose track of character backgrounds, timelines, etc. So, I read each and every book in the order that I wrote them (note: they can still be read as stand-alone books).
And…
…oops.
This was when I realized (in horror) how many mistakes I’ve made over the years. After berating myself for not re-reading these books sooner – and then berating myself further for having the memory of a very small wasp – I got down to business. I started listing all the mistakes I found in each book, large and small. Thank goodness the small outnumbered the large by a wide margin. Still, a few of these larger mistakes were not pretty.
This is was also the moment when I came to embrace my new best friend:
REPRINTS!!
The good news: this series has a wonderful readership (thank you, readers!) and gives me the opportunity to redeem myself in updated (aka fixed) versions of the books.
The bad news: the original versions are still out there aplenty, mistakes glaring in the spotlight…or so I imagine. Well, maybe not imagined; kids are astute and pick up on so many small details. That’s normally great, but not if you’ve realized you’ve made some cringey blunders.
So, this is why I’ve decided that – instead of ignoring these errors – I’d like to point them out…mainly before my readers do it for me (lol). Seriously, I think it’s good to own up to these and for young readers to realize that authors (drum roll, please)…
…are human!
I had listed and fixed 23 errors total (and those are just the ones I caught), but I’ll only display a few doozies below and why they will be addressed in the next book reprints. I also decided to update about a dozen details that seemed outdated (a few also noted below). Here we go!
INVISIBLE EMMIE, page 23: This is an update rather than an error. Since DVDs have gone the way of the dinosaurs, I’m updating it to read: “my mom has all these ancient DVDs from the fitness center.”
JUST JAIME, page 32: Similarly, I’m updating “Vines” to “SnapGab reels.”
JUST JAIME, page 193: Here’s a big one. I had to change “dad” to “mom” in Sarah’s speech bubble because it’s noted in SURPRISINGLY SARAH that Sarah’s dad had left her family early on. Arghhhh.
BECOMING BRIANNA, page 222: This is not an error, but in retrospect, I thought I’d change the words “He (or She)” to just plain ol’ “God” in order to be non-gender-specific.
TRULY TYLER, page 346: When I wrote ALWAYS ANTHONY last year, I had completely forgotten that I had already drawn an image of Anthony’s parents in TRULY TYLER. In ANTHONY, the parents look quite different. So, I redrew them for future printings of TYLER. Here’s the original image and the fixed version for TYLER:
REMARKABLY RUBY, page 163: Here’s a huge one. I had to change “dad’s” to “mom’s” because…well, Leah’s dad is DEAD. (Really, past me?) Yeah, big whoops.
ALWAYS ANTHONY: According to TRULY TYLER, JUST JAIME, and this book, there are inconsistencies about when Anthony had dated Nikki Lourde. Seems like I had gotten my timelines confused. In this case, I had already written and illustrated ANTHONY and couldn’t go back to fix this mistake, so I just have to own it.
So there you go. Some “oopsies” and a few updates. But, like I said, I’m owning them. Speaking of owning, there’s something cool about owning those pre-fixed original books: you possess something truly authentic and vintage, flaws and all!
At least, that’s how I’m gonna look at it. 🙂
