A WORD ON EDITING

I just received my final chance today for making those last minute corrections in my manuscript. I now have 48 hours to re-read KEECHIE ( http://www.freewebs.com/brew99/ ) for the umpteenth time, and the scary thing is, every time I read it, I find more typos and things to correct. At this point, no wording or formatting is permitted—only small errors in spelling and punctuation allowed, since the book has, at this point, already been formatted into book form.

One of the most difficult things a writer can do is proofread his own work. (NOW I realize this!) The problem is that you, as the writer, knew what you MEANT to say. When you read the words, your brain will automatically correct what you wrote into what you MEANT to write. Brains are funny that way...

When I was given the option of having the publisher assign an editor to my manuscript, which would have taken an additional eight to nine months before going to print, or do the editing myself and have it in print in six to eight weeks. Since I was fairly confident in the Microsoft Word spellchecker, I went with the latter, and now that it's "down to the wire", I am having second thoughts about that decision.

Hiring an editor is expensive, but very likely worth the cost. The next best option is to have family and friends read it for you. The problem with this is that family and friends don't want to hurt your feelings! They give you "atta-boys" and "This is GREAT!" comments, but won't tell you that your grammar... well... SUCKS!

I can take criticism, especially if offered a solution on how I could have improved upon it. This is like a friend letting you go out in public with your zipper open, because he didn't want to embarass you by letting you know. Please, if you notice that, tell me, okay?

If your first book is poorly written, has spelling errors or glaring grammatical goofs, chances are the reader will not finish reading it, and worse, will not spend the money to buy your NEXT book.

I have found errors in books by famous authors, but they were few and forgivable because the story was good, and the author is well-known. I truly believe I have written a good story, but the "forgive" factor does not apply to a new, unknown author.

I now have 46 hours to make sure that my readers will not "find my zipper open".