Finding Proofreaders

We’ve been really busy since Tanella’s Flight came out. Preliminary editing was finished for Fabric of the World, and a search was made for proofreaders. Eight of my letterboxing friends volunteered to help, and were sent electronic copies of the manuscript. They were given instructions on what we wanted in a proofreader, and told to return the manuscripts by August 1st. One of them has already returned their copy. With any luck, Fabric of the World will be out by this November.

In the meantime, I started preliminary editing on a book whose working title is One Deadly Gamble Too Many. My partner is doing preliminary editing on The Mom’s Place. Both of those books are tentatively planned for release next year.

Attention has been taken from our writing by family health issues. A sister-in-law lost her battle against pancreatic cancer. My dad has been in and out of the hospital twice with various issues, including serious bruising from being dropped by caregivers, a paralyzing fever, and a small stroke. This has kept my partner, who is also my mother, very busy in her primary job of taking care of her family.

I tripped and fell while out doing errands for the family and ended up with a dislocated right elbow. I am severely right-handed, and the last four weeks of being not only one-handed, but left-handed, have been challenging to say the least. For example, I can get the ice and water from the dispenser in the fridge door, but I can’t make my own sandwich. Handling a spoon with my left hand usually results in decorating my shirt with whatever is for dinner. I’m sure you can imagine other areas in which the sudden, although temporary, loss of the use of one hand has been frustrating. On the up side, I think I’m finally to the point where I don’t need prescription painkillers anymore, so things are improving.

Within two weeks I expect to get the cast off my arm and be able to resume editing. We have also been discussing the possibility of releasing Tanella’s Flight as an audio book.

Probably beginning in September or so, we will make available autographed book plates that we will send, free, to anyone who purchases a book and requests the book plate from us. The book plates are still in the design stage, but not only will they be personally autographed, we intend at this point that they will be hand stamped, and the stamp itself will be hand carved.