Great advice as always.

One of the things I loved about Dance Me To The End was that it managed to dodge the lack of polish of journal entries while remaining true to their raw emotional heft. Not an easy thing to pull off, and I can imagine it took some extremely skillful editing to walk that tightrope.

I spent thousands hiring an editor for my novel, and it was money well spent. I get why others don't. Not everyone has that kind of money to spend on what's always going to be a shot in the dark anyway. But if you take your writing seriously, you should definitely try to find the money somewhere.