I just saw “Editing Letter” which Dawn shared and said was posted by Nikita (that evil artist!)

Is that what’s in store for me? Oh no! I’m still in my bathrobe when the mail arrives.

I’ve been fairly quiet here, so I thought I’d share what I’ve been doing. My first mass market paperback hasn’t hit the editor’s desk yet. (Ash chews fingernails.) It’s going through my critique partner’s loving red pen slashes. Yes, loving. She catches every misplaced quotation mark and repeated word. When I see her tomorrow for our weekly chop session, I’m going to kiss her feet. I’d better email her ahead of time and ask her to shower first.

I’m especially grateful right now because my agent asked to see what I had so she could give me an opinion on a scene I was thinking of cutting completely and replacing with something very different. Only about one third has critiqued and repaired so far.

“Aw, it’s not that bad. I’m sure she’ll forgive a missed comma or two,” I thought. So I sent it. Then I continued on to self-edit before showing the next two chapters to Diana (my critique partner.)

Horrors! For some reason, I had forgotten how awful my words were before Diana spotted the bad ones and brainstormed better ones with me. I wanted to put my head in my hands and cry. I wanted to reach through cyperspace and drag that ms. back from my agent’s laptop–even if she had printed out the pages and they were literally sitting atop her lap!

If I don’t hear from her with some kind of positive encouragement, I’ll assume she’s off shredding my contract!  Oh, the humanity!!!

Oh, why do I do this to myself? Nobody’s perfect, right? Nobody! Even those who seem to think they are fail the perfection test for that thought alone (as well as being insufferable bores.)

Oy. There’s no way around it. I’m not perfect and I imagine my agent knows that. I hope she’ll be so captivated with the story she won’t notice I used the word ‘actually’ three times in one paragraph. Maybe she doesn’t care if the word him was supposed to be her and the whole meaning of the sentence changed. LOL (Oh no! I’m toast.)

Fortunately, my deadline was extended to July 31st so the WHOLE thing can benefit from my critique partner’s loving suggestions before those editing letters start flying through the mail.

Positive footnote: I plotted book two in the three book series.  (Well, at least that’s off my plate!)

Ash