Brilliance in the night tugs at the back of my mind.

Well, we should not say brilliance exactly. Perhaps, awareness of stupidity would be more appropriate.

For all intents and purposes, after dozens of edits by me and three edits by two very intelligent, english oriented people, including a sixth grade teacher, I sent out my query, etc to my first agent.

Did you ever go back and have this sinking feeling? Darn, how did that get into the first page? I found a grammar error in the query and a book error in the first page of the book. What??? Do gremlins come in the night and change your words??? How did that get there?

I decided I better go through one more read, yet again, for errors. Then, in the middle of the night I woke up with the realization that I had to change my ending.

I've had this nagging thought that I was doing a "Oh and then the magic fairy whipped in and solved the problem." It was not exactly the major plot but it should have been.

So, now I shall go through, one more time out of a zillion, and do several things: make a definitive list of curriculum references, check for those gremlin errors, and make sure that my plot is resolved by my protagonist and not by any pesky fairies.

But first, I'm going to wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving, with turkey or with vegetables. It's the friendship that counts.

Colons and commas and Semi-Colons, OH MY!!!!

It has been a long time since I was in school and found it essential to have good grammar and punctuation skills. Hence, I have pulled out my trusty copy of Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference. http://www.amazon.com/Writers-Reference-Diana-Hacker/dp/031202455X/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1243211518&sr=11-1

I have re-learned/re-freshed my skills with colons and semi-colons and commas; colons being those pesky things which I use way too often.

Okay, was that right? Is that second half of "equal grammatical rank?"

My real lesson with this book though, has been tense.

About a year ago, I entered one of agent, Nathan Bransford's contests. Nathan Bransford - Literary Agent. Occasionally, this masochistic man will offer to read a bazillion entries of the first "x" number of words of any novel you are working on. I was not one of the winners but I did take another reader's offer of critiquing them and the first thing he said, is that I had two tenses going on.

I thought I had gone in and corrected this, but I knew I had not been thorough enough, so after my character charts were over, I started from word one and began reading the book, sentence by sentence. My first page or so was in present tense, then I slipped (with no good reason, if there ever is one) to past tense.

For some reason, if I can keep my Writer's Reference, right beside my laptop, to keep glancing at, page 39, it becomes clear to my foggy brain.

Now, if I can just do something about run-on sentences, in my blog!!!

Submitting my novel to Master's Daughter

I am one third of the way through my line edit. Since the first chapter has been edited a gazillion times, and the last two chapters are not complete, it will get slower as I go. I thought though that you might like to see my instructions to Master’s Daughter, who is doing an edit of my book. She is a teacher, mother of three (four, counting her bear of a husband), and a knitter with a busy life. I decided to send her installments so she can edit them at her leisure and not open her email and go, “OH NO!!” She did know it was coming eventually.

Dear loving and patient daughter, who is doing me an enormous favor:

I am attaching my completed chapters 1 through 7.

I am basically doing my final edit (till the very last two chapters) and have completed the attached, so rather than flooding you will all of it at once, I thought submitting it in installments might be better.

Believe me, I know you are busy and this is low on your list. So, don't panic. "Oh, no. I have to grade papers, feed children, knit, enjoy life and here's this thing." Don't worry. Just grab it when you are in the mood.

Mainly, I need checks on punctuation, grammar, tense, etc.
Second, IF YOU WANT, mark up anything else that needs help.

I want honesty. Total honesty. Because if you think it's crap, and you have read a lot of sixth grade novels, then there is a good chance editors/agents will agree. I would rather turn around and start something new and "hopefully not crap", or fix this (if there are just minor problems) than waste time on something that is going nowhere. I will not be heartbroken, perhaps bent a bit, but not broken.

One thing they say is , it is good to have editors put their first gut feeling in places that are either like "Wow, awesome scene." "Really tense" "Boring and slow" "What the hell is this about?" "Don't understand" "You are the second coming of ***" or "Go take a course in advertising copy. Maybe you can write that."

If you catch anything wrong, please mark it. Like not wrapping up plot points or "What the heck is the Plot supposed to be."

Love you.
Mom