Re: The need for an editor of TRA.
There was an “editorial team” he named at the time. It consisted of Covert Fade, Mark O’Donnell and Kim O’Donnell(!). There were a couple others, but those were the names that stuck out.
Nothing personal against the O’Donnells and CF, but what editorial qualifications do they have besides being able to comprehend English and being exJWs? Being sycophants of his at the time, it was unlikely they were going to ever give Lloyd the advice he desperately needed. I actually spoke to O’Donnell under a burner account and he was going on about how earth shattering Lloyd’s memoir was in the first draft.
He seriously needs an editor to take an axe to that monster.
Like a poorly written and directed movie, the book lacked any strategic pace and felt like it were three clumsy attempts at books that were then blended together at the last minute. It was clear he began that project with a straight-up memoir in mind in the first few chapters, then pivoted to doctrinal rebuttals in the next few, then devoted the final chapters to more recent events in his life and within the organisation.
Then, as the book had long since stagnated, he inexplicably starts relaying the personal stories that a couple of his followers related to him.
If I were editing it, I would have told him to drop the explicit sexual details and keep that section brief and to the point, reduce the doctrinal rebuttals and attempt to cleverly weave them into his personal narrative instead of devoting chapters to it, drop the sanctimonious re-write of the letter to mum, the Christmas tree humping and the stories his followers wrote for him.
Even then it would have still had been a fairly mediocre product. He’s a blogger, not a writer, and it shows.
