Edit, Spit, and Polish

Okay, for those of you who are great at editing commas, either I did it properly in the title or I did not. My long-suffering CP has a gift at all things grammar. She sent me my hard copy MS and it arrived yesterday. Everywhere I am supposed to have a comma, there isn't one. Well, not quite, but close enough. And everywhere I shouldn't have a comma, I should not.

Okay, it's not that bad. I do know how to insert commas in dialogue, but I am a always confusing the "if two clauses can be read alone, separate them. If not, don't. Argh.

I spent the better part of 5 hours fixing commas. Oh, and fixing sex scenes. Hands don't detach and touch body parts by themselves. Gross. By fixing issues like that I added a few words, struggled with some words, and I subtracted some words.

Now I have to go in and add more words. The irony is not lost on me. I hate cutting words. Yet, here I am agonizing over adding words so I can at least restore the MS to 55,000 to 60,000 words. It had more than that at one time.

I guess it's a good thing I am not writing a single title romance. And it's another good thing that publishers what to save money on paper and printing. Whew.

At least the story is sound. She loves how I fixed the plotting problems. And that's where the writing is important to me. It's in the story and the voice it's written in that is vital for me because those are the elements I want to sell to the agents/editors.

Commas are easy to find and fix. And I am a workhorse, so I will take my lumps and fix them when asked. However, I may whine.

Meanwhile, back at the creative ranch I am eager to come up with a boatload of questions for the Green Beret who came to speak to our romance chapter. What an awesome dude! He was totally jazzed about all his adventures, and he was very Tim the Tool Man enthusiastic for all the bells, whistles and toys he used.

Very cool.

I can't wait to learn more.

But I have to wait till I get the MS sent off. My reward for all this editing will be having fun with the revision of the fourth book. Woot!