No matter how hard you work or the care you bring to your work, it is difficult to do really good work on your own--good work definitely profits from working with a great team.
In my final years as an educator, I worked with an amazing team. Each of us brought unique talents, skill, and experience to the team, and we continually helped each other do a good job--together we did a great job. This was sensational.
Now that I am writing more, I am realizing that I have to team with other writers and editors to optimize what I can do. It is almost impossible to edit your own work all the time without making mistakes. As with any art or craft, it's easy to become blinded to your error especially if you are working at a quick pace. Just today, a social media colleague kindly pointed out one of my errors. I was able to quickly make the change and thank this caring editor for the correction. I was sorry to make the error, however, as my initial share included a wrong fact. It was unintentional, but nevertheless, errors like that harm the trust people put into your work and mislead people too.
So what's a novice writer like me to do?
First, I have to take my work more seriously, and by this, I mean I have to make the time to take more care with the details, facts, and accuracy. I have to make that needed time to edit carefully before publishing. This may sound like Writing 101 to most of you, but as a person who is shifting from a crazy, busy life of a teacher and writer to a writer with more time to finesse the details, this is an important next step for me.
Next, soon I will begin to look for writer's groups to work with--people who I can learn with and from as we write. This will provide me with the team I need to better my work.
There's always room for improvement, and I intend to move in that direction.