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Valued Contributor
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Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Hi Gardenman,  I read Annie's Gift and enjoyed it. I like the alternate world twists and turns.  I like how you write about good and evil and moral dilemmas in your books. 

 

I was a little confused in one part of Annie's Gift.  Would like to reach you with a specific question.  

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Posts: 25,777
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@sassenach1 wrote:

Hi Gardenman,  I read Annie's Gift and enjoyed it. I like the alternate world twists and turns.  I like how you write about good and evil and moral dilemmas in your books. 

 

I was a little confused in one part of Annie's Gift.  Would like to reach you with a specific question.  


@sassenach1 Hi! I'm glad you enjoyed it! What's your question?

Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!
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Registered: ‎03-09-2010

@sassenach1 I'm guessing you found a continuity/proofing issue. "Annie's Gift" was a novel that I spent over a month proofing and reading and rereading, and rereading and frankly I got sick of doing it and one day just decided, "To heck with it. It's done. I won't promote it and just put it out there for now and come back and fix any issues later." Feel free to report any issues you've found. I'm sure there are still some that need fixing. 

 

Writing novels is fun. Proofing and editing can drive you slowly insane. When you're reading the same novel day after day for a month or more, your eyes start to glaze over and finally you just can't take it anymore. Then you either just put it out there, or put it back on the computer and come back to it later. (I've got another YA/MG novel that's still on the computer after I got frustrated proofing it.) In "Annie's Gift" I decided to put it out there and come back later and fix any issues. (Which by the way is pretty easy to do.) Feel free to ask me any questions you have, point out any issues and I'll be only to happy to answer your quesitons.

Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!
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Posts: 944
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

@gardenman wrote:

@sassenach1 I'm guessing you found a continuity/proofing issue. "Annie's Gift" was a novel that I spent over a month proofing and reading and rereading, and rereading and frankly I got sick of doing it and one day just decided, "To heck with it. It's done. I won't promote it and just put it out there for now and come back and fix any issues later." Feel free to report any issues you've found. I'm sure there are still some that need fixing. 

 

Writing novels is fun. Proofing and editing can drive you slowly insane. When you're reading the same novel day after day for a month or more, your eyes start to glaze over and finally you just can't take it anymore. Then you either just put it out there, or put it back on the computer and come back to it later. (I've got another YA/MG novel that's still on the computer after I got frustrated proofing it.) In "Annie's Gift" I decided to put it out there and come back later and fix any issues. (Which by the way is pretty easy to do.) Feel free to ask me any questions you have, point out any issues and I'll be only to happy to answer your quesitons.


Hi Gardenman!  Yes, I really enjoyed Annie's Gift!  Can't imagine proofreading something a zillion times.  My daughter is in on line text books and she does that for a career!  I'm like. "I know what I meant to say!"

 

Yes, it is at the 82% mark.  I think you may have meant to type "Wallace" several times instead of "Marcus".

 

 

 

 

 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 25,777
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

@sassenach1 wrote:

@gardenman wrote:

@sassenach1 I'm guessing you found a continuity/proofing issue. "Annie's Gift" was a novel that I spent over a month proofing and reading and rereading, and rereading and frankly I got sick of doing it and one day just decided, "To heck with it. It's done. I won't promote it and just put it out there for now and come back and fix any issues later." Feel free to report any issues you've found. I'm sure there are still some that need fixing. 

 

Writing novels is fun. Proofing and editing can drive you slowly insane. When you're reading the same novel day after day for a month or more, your eyes start to glaze over and finally you just can't take it anymore. Then you either just put it out there, or put it back on the computer and come back to it later. (I've got another YA/MG novel that's still on the computer after I got frustrated proofing it.) In "Annie's Gift" I decided to put it out there and come back later and fix any issues. (Which by the way is pretty easy to do.) Feel free to ask me any questions you have, point out any issues and I'll be only to happy to answer your quesitons.


Hi Gardenman!  Yes, I really enjoyed Annie's Gift!  Can't imagine proofreading something a zillion times.  My daughter is in on line text books and she does that for a career!  I'm like. "I know what I meant to say!"

 

Yes, it is at the 82% mark.  I think you may have meant to type "Wallace" several times instead of "Marcus".

 

 

 

 

 


Thanks for that, I'll look it up and fix it tomorrow! Every time you think you have it ready and give one last read, you find something new to fix and after about a month of that I finally gave up. I was pretty sure it wasn't perfect, but I just couldn't look at it any longer.

Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!
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I had a few spare minutes now so I went ahead and found three places where I used the wrong name and fixed those. The new files are being uploaded and that problem is now fixed! Thanks for telling me about the issue!  

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Thank you, Gardenman!
Honored Contributor
Posts: 25,777
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

@sassenach1 wrote:
Thank you, Gardenman!

I owe you the thanks. Any time anyone finds a flaw in any of my books, I want to hear about it. I can fix the files in a few minutes time, so it's not a big deal. I've read a lot of books (including traditionally published ones) that are filled with issues that no one seems to care about. As soon as I learn there's an issue, I fix it so future readers won't find the same problem.

 

Every day when I write, I read what I wrote the day before and fix any issues I find at that time. Then when the book is finished I read it again from start to finish and fix any issues I find. Then I start the publishing process and read the CreateSpace proof of the novel. I then fix any issues found and upload the new file. Then I read the new CreateSpace proof again and fix any new issues I find and repeat the process until I find no issues.

 

I then do the transfer to Kindle Direct Publishing and read the Kindle proof. If I find any new issues there, I then fix both sets of files resubmit again and then proof everything all over again.

 

By the time a book goes live I've likely read it ten or more times in a few weeks and I'm pretty tired of reading it. "Annie's Gift" just kept giving me one more issue here, one more issue there and the proofing went on forever. I got to the point where I just couldn't read "Annie's Gift" one more time and it was time to either put it back on the computer and forget about it for a while, or publish it "as is" and hope it wasn't too much of a mess and fix any issues that others find. I'm sorry you had to find the issues, but be assured future readers will no longer encounter those issues thanks to your pointing them out. 

 

By the way, "Annie's Gift" is now under consideration to be included in a YA StoryBundle for the spring. The current political thriller StoryBundle which includes my novel "Sara X" is doing well and the curator who asembled that one is now working on the YA bundle for the spring. There's no guarantee it'll be included, but we'll see.

Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!