Critiquing the manuscript

The rain has stopped in Indiana, if only for a day and a half, and the sun has dried the ground enough that the phone lines are fairly good. Although, I have been kicked off twice in trying to post this and this morning, I had a party line. Thank you sooooo much AT&T, for this service.

I printed my complete manuscript and started passing it around. The first person who read it (son, age 20) marked corrections/concerns and returned it to me. I just corrected a few pages, reprinted those and passed it on to person #2 (husband, 47 going on 80).

No, I am not being mean, the poor man has had COPD for twenty years and is often seated with my mother, in restaurants, instead of with me. He is one of those people who you do not want to watch certain movies with as he will sit there and pick out something he feels is not logical and drive you nuts talking about it. Hence, he is good to have edit. Mostly, his contribution was to extend the final scene and it is now greatly improved and two chapters instead of one, and also reprinted.

Actually, my Master’s Daughter is the second editor, but is very busy and has not gotten all of it back to me. My very first editor was one of her sixth grade students. A wiz kid, with an attitude, who I found adorable. He’s ultra smart. I am trying to have as many people as possible read it and critique as you get a different ideas and comments from all ages and people.

I am now reading the book on the computer, to make a final list of all the foreshadowing for the future books in the series and also reading it off of paper to younger son, and am amazed that I can still find things like extra punctuation marks, etc. Does this never end? I am anxious for oldest son to get home at the end of August, with his fiancé, and have them read it. Hopefully, by then, I will have all the related documents ready to go, my website up and can get on with submitting.