Hello,

I have completed one stage of the rewrites for my crime/mystery You Don’t Know Me and now the work really begins. The stages. I’ve completed the preliminary rewrite where I reread what I’ve saved on the computer. I take out as many of those “ly and ing” words as I can, toss out the junk readers don’t read and tighten up the story as much as I can. Next I’ll print off the pages and read them into my recorder. I don’t trust very much what my eyes see on the computer, I believe they miss more than they should. I feel the most comfortable reading off the printed page anyway; I think I catch more mistakes that way. And by using the recorder I know I hear them, they blare at me, I can’t help tripping over them. When I listen it enables me to make the changes and smooth out the story so that it flows; it feels wonderful not to stumble over story as I go along-- to just enjoy it and I imagine the reader will appreciate this too.

After I record its back to edit the changes into the computer copy and more reading. It's a long process isn’t it? Yet it works for me. Of course I wonder if it’s just a form of procrastination because I fear getting my story out so I go through all these forms of rewriting. I’ve thought about this quite a bit and decided that yes, it’s 5 percent all that but the 95 percent left is my determination to give those who choose to read my work a great story they can't put down, a terrific adventure, genuine characters they love and want to visit with again and all this takes so much time, effort, many mistakes along the way, fixes, so many rewrites—it’s the only way.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please e-mail me at: matwrite1@hotmail. com. I’ll love to hear from you.

Until next time, God willing,

Lori