A couple days ago I noticed I'd missed a word at the end of a sentence on A Helping Hand, my most recent story submitted to the DBO fanfic section. Oh well, I thought, it didn't really change anything. Today I went back to reread it and found another word not missing but garbled. Somewhere where I changed something but didn't properly delete the original sentence. Another oh well. But as I kept reading I noticed more and more errors. Errors that would not get by my usual self-editing process. Errors that, in fact, did not get by my editing! I have a good version right here in front of me.

My best guess is that version online is the version I first pasted into the submission box. I then used the preview button multiple times to fix many things, and pasted the final version back in before hitting the submit button. Well that or somehow I made a colossal error of fixing things and didn't paste in the final version… though that seems more unlikely as I'm pretty protective of my work. I'm thinking the system grabbed whatever I first pasted in but did not update it when I made my corrections before submitting.

Anyway, there seems to be no way to edit a story after it is submitted and however it happened what is up there now is quite embarrassing. Certainly not representative of the quality of work I strive to present. So yes, everyone please hurry over to the fan fiction second and do not read my story until further notice. Thanks. :p

P.S. I also emailed Jim Stitzel, caretaker of Fan Fiction, a version of this, but I thought I'd post it here for posterity and as a warning to future generations to be careful when submitting fanfic in case either you or the system somehow screws it all up. :p

I got your email and responded. Sorry it took a couple of days to reply.

And yes, once your story is submitted, it's out of your control, so make certain that the version you're submitting is the version you want made public.