The Wizard Rocks Finders Keepers!

This is going to be a two-fold tale. Part 1 is about process, Part 2 is about fate.

Ooooh. Mysterious …

[b]Part 1: The Copy Editor Dude–a.k.a. The Wizard[/b]

Now that I’ve got a copy of the complete Finders Keepers manuscript off in the mail to the agent who requested it–and isn’t that friggin sweet?! Yeah, Baby!–I want to say a few words about the copy editor who worked on my book, Barney O’Neil (a.k.a The Wizard).

I first wrote about why I brought Barney on board in mThis is going to be a two-fold tale. Part 1 is about process, Part 2 is about fate.

Ooooh. Mysterious …

[b]Part 1: The Copy Editor Dude–a.k.a. The Wizard[/b]

Now that I’ve got a copy of the complete Finders Keepers manuscript off in the mail to the agent who requested it–and isn’t that friggin sweet?! Yeah, Baby!–I want to say a few words about the copy editor who worked on my book, Barney O’Neil (a.k.a The Wizard).

I first wrote about why I brought Barney on board in my Sept. 26 blog, but I want to go into a little more detail about what he actually did to the Finders Keepers manuscript, and how his efforts improved my book.

As I noted earlier, the main function of a copy editor is to look for smaller things, like spelling mistakes, incorrect punctuation, wonky grammar, etc. Thankfully, Finders Keepers was in pretty good shape when he got it, but there were still plenty of little things he found that I had simply missed, even though I went through the entire manuscript several times. A few examples:

* On page 43 I wrote the word [i]waste[/i], when it should have been [i]waist[/i], as in around the waist.

* Throughout the manuscript I wrote [i]Milky Way Galaxy[/i], when it really should be [i]Milky Way galaxy[/i], so that [i]galaxy[/i] has a lowercase [i]g[/i].

* On page 138 I wrote rouge, instead of rogue, as in a rogue warrior.

* On page 295, the dialog was supposed to read, [i]you know how girls are[/i]. What I wrote was, [i]you know how girls[/i], and the left out the word [i]are.[/i]

* On several occasions I wrote the word [i]duffle[/i], instead of [i]duffel,[/i] as in [i]duffel bag[/i].

As you can probably gather from these little elements, Barney had to scour the manuscript with a fine toothed comb to catch them. It is a 120,000-word manuscript after all, so there’s bound to be little things that get missed.

But Barney also did something else for me. He raised a few questions, some having to do with sequence, some with logic. For example, in at least two instances, I noted that an action took place on a Wednesday, but when referring back to an earlier scene, they didn’t agree. The action, in fact, had to be on a Thursday. And Barney caught that. I simply missed it.

Barney also challenged my logic in a few places, and he got me thinking in a few of those, so I went back and made some changes that I believe strengthen the manuscript. Just little things that can add up to big things. Without going into too much detail (as I don’t want to give anything away), Barney correctly pointed out that I need to mention one character just a little bit more so that it worked better throughout the book.

[b]Part 2: The Request of Fate[/b]

Barney’s contributions aside, something bigger happened here, something that reinforces my beliefs in the grander scheme of things.

All summer long I was out stumping for Finders Keepers, hitting the conventions, sending out query letters, and the efforts paid off. The buzz kept building, interest kept building, and more and more I could see big things happening for Finders Keepers. But while the big thing was right there–so close–it hadn’t quite arrived.

In the middle of all this I decided to bring Barney on board. After he did his review of the manuscript it took me about three weeks to review his suggestions, make the appropriate changes, double check that I made the changes correctly, and then answer his queries that I noted above.

Within one day–24 hours–of me finishing those changes … [i]Whamo! [/i] I get an email from an agent gushing over my concept and sample pages, and requested a full manuscript.

[i]One day![/i]

Coincidence? I think not.

What I believe deep in my bones is that the Universe was looking out for me all along, that it was waiting for me to work on my game promotion-wise, and then upgrade the manuscript detail-wise, so that when a truly great opportunity came my way, I would be ready.

I’ve had too many of these timing miracles come my way over the years to believe anything else. I mean, why didn’t this agent contact me two weeks ago? Or two weeks from now? Or two months? Or two years? Why exactly one day after I got Finders Keepers in tip-top shape? Because the Universe knows that I’m ready–that this is my time–and so it brought this wonderful opportunity to me.

Call me crazy–hey, I’ll be the first to admit that you’re right–but when it comes to these acts of divine intervention, I’m a believer. They keep my juices flowing, and inspire me to follow through.

So bringing Barney on board to Team Finders Keepers wasn’t just a good move technical-wise, it opened the door for something wonderful.

As always, I will keep you posted …

Subscribe / Share

Article by Russ
Authors bio is coming up shortly.

Comments are closed

NEW BOOK RELEASE! SciFi Noir

Blunt Force Rising

You Could Be Reading...

Murder in Montague Falls

Blog Archives

Goodreads

Russ Colchamiro's books on Goodreads
Finders KeepersFinders Keepers
reviews: 10
ratings: 303 (avg rating 4.00)