A few days ago I typed “The End” on my fourth novel, Reunion at the Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort, the third in the Happy Valley trilogy. If that sounds confusing, it’s because one of my books, The Cowboy and the Executive, is for now, a stand-alone romance.
“Reunion” is currently in the hands of beta readers and I know it’s being read with an eye for all of my missteps and goof ups. Unless one is perfect, and I have yet to meet anyone fitting that description, beta readers and a good editor are essential to creating a finished book with a polished feel.
I’m a better than average proofreader, but when it comes to one’s own writing one develops a certain selective blindness. I still cringe at some of the minor errors I now see in Mayhem at the Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort, and one day maybe we’ll pull the book from Amazon and fix them. Just not today.
While “Reunion” is being worked on, I’m cleaning out my closet. Ugh. A job I’d planned on taking one day is now into its fourth. Of course it might go more quickly if I weren’t also taking breaks to ruminate on book four in the Happy Valley series—working title, Christmas at the Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort. Yes, Paula, Cassie, and the gang are coming along for at least one additional adventure before I wrap the series up. Will Santa show up with just the right presents? Maybe.
Spring fever has attacked with a vengeance this year. I want to be outside, but outside makes my eyes water. The weather here in the Florida panhandle is absolutely gorgeous, but the pollen is everywhere. I could make a “pollen man” and stick a corn cob pipe in his mouth, but I’d probably collapse from sneezing mid-construction. At least I’m not cold, and that’s a plus.
Okay, that closet is still calling. I might see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then again, maybe that’s an oncoming train.
Peace, people!
Praying for Eyebrowz 
Eagerly waiting for Book 3, Reunion and now there is going to be Book 4? That is great news, always something to look forward to! If it is taking you this many days to clean out your closet, it must be as big of a closet as your granddaughter’s? (Another bedroom, really) ! Enjoy and take time out to write and get outside when you can.
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Thanks! My closet is a fraction of the size of McKayla’s, but I had a lot of stuff crammed in there. I’m not the most organized person in the world.
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Congratulations
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Thank you!
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Congrats Leslie. Sure you will knock em dead. Gotta laugh at the proofing. It is a defo fact that once you have written something your eye should not be on it!
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And yet so many claim they can get away without an editor.
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Well I don’t use an editor because I have worked as one and it’s not really an editor’s full job to proof, also you have diff types of editing, one of which is copy editing, where it is just word repetition and phrase repetition that they do. But using a proofer is a diff thing. Spell check will not pick up on a word that is not wrong but might be an an instead of am. I dunno if I told you to the glarer re the window, widow display in an article once had been edited and proofed and nearly went out like that. But that one would have been a clanker.
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Hah! I’m a big believer in proofing beyond what the software offers. Recently read a decent story in which the author consistently confused the words ‘then’ and ‘than’. Bugged the crap out of me. They might’ve run it through spell check, but that doesn’t cut the mustard, as we say.
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lol. Well the thing is that clanker??? The proofer had absolute eagle eyes, the guy that did the write up NEVER got anything wrong, I think it was the first time they’d made a damned error. Like that I wa shaving this clock watching, twiddle my thumbs moment at 5 to 5 on a Friday, when I just happened to glance at that screen again. I tell you, you have never seen anyone move so fast as i did in order to pull the blood magazine, or visions of widows on display in their drawers would never have been erased from the average reader’s mind.
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Lmao!
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Hell, it was some epic prose about how the annual ‘window’ display was kinda not just renowned but prize-winning. But there was no getting away from the fact that widow was what it said. As I hared up corridors cos the printer guy was not picking up his phone, I thought… …AHHHH, the jobs I am saving here. (that was in addition to ahem…other words.)
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Lol! I can imagine your urgency!
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Congratulations! If I lived closer I would come help with the closet. I quite enjoy closet cleaning.
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Oh, I wish you lived closer!
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Congratulations on reaching The End
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Thanks!
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