Why focus on such a self-evident word? Flawless means…. (yes, I went to the OED just to be sure)… free from flaws, without crack, defect or imperfection.
This is my new favorite word because Bette-Lee Fox at the Library Journal used this word to describe “The Soldier” in her review of the book, and in her description for the LJ’s “More of the Best of the Best” list for 2011.
The book is not flawless. I’m sure there’s a typo lurking between its pages. There are scenes I could do a better job with, lines of dialogue that could stand to be tweaked, cut, polished and otherwise brought closer to perfection.
I will worry about all that ten minutes from now. Just for a few moments, I want to bask–that is the word–in the relief of having affirmation of this magnitude by a voice as knowledgeable as Bette-Lee Fox. To publish commercial fiction is to subject oneself to criticism from anybody with the right of free speech. I love that we have that right, but sometimes being on the receiving end of the speech can leave an author dazed and shaking (temporarily). “Flawless” leaves an author dazed and shaking in an entirely different way and I hope in each of your lives, somebody hands you a moment like this, when your work is also declared, “flawless.”