Editing! Editing! Editing!

I did it! Finally! My 135,000 word, 439 page manuscript was uploaded for editing after the first draft was drastically pared down on the advice of the editor who will re-read it now to see how well I complied. I should have it sent back in 15 to 20 days with the unavoidable edits for me to approve. Guess what it cost at $.015/word? You do the math. Editors do long and tedious work and they are paid well for it. No matter how often I re-read a chapter, I would find something grammatically incorrect. My worst mistakes are missing words that my stupid brain inserts automatically as I read. Unfortunately, a discriminating reader's brain will expect perfection in a published book. People are so unforgiving when they see errors in a final edition. I'm happy that they didn't require a higher level of editing above the basic which is double the cost. For that, I credit my proofreaders. So, if he catches spelling, grammar, punctuation and word choice, I will be very happy.

They are also supposed to check for accuracy in your statements, but I don't know exactly what that means. There is no way they can check accuracy regarding content. I have done that already with my sources. I have to thank Talgo Corp. for their work in helping me design the right train for the circumstances used in the story. Thank goodness I got that cleared up before the book went to press because the structure I used was totally incorrect. I would have lost credibility with some readers who understand the unique technology of Talgo trains. The Mountain Daylight train in the book will be of a different design than any currently running in America. The Mountain Daylight will be a futurist double deck train, 20 cars long, carrying about 240 passengers, and is capable of traveling 125 mph. If tracks and signaling were up to standard, it could be built today right here in America and pulled with existing locomotive stock. How neat is that? We're 50 years behind Europe in our transportation systems.

The basketball, coaching, farming, legal and medical issues have been reviewed by the experts that I used for sources. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to all my sources that generously shared their knowledge and guided me in the right direction when doing the endless hours of research that this book required of me. I don't know what possessed me to embark on a story of this nature which covers so many subjects that required so many experts and such instense research. I have an idea that most authors go through the same exercise.

The other big job today was filling out the book cover questionnaire for the publisher. I eagerly uploaded the cover art. Linda Whitney, VCSU art professor, hooked me up with artist Mike Rasmussen, Oriska, ND, who brilliantly painted the Valley City, ND High Line Bridge for the cover. I can hardly wait to see what the design team does with it. I expect them to design an intriguing cover that will draw the reader to look inside of the book at the table of contents where they will see that the story is about life on the Dakota prairies, basketball and trains. It won't be that obvious but there is a little romance tucked in here and there.