Editing

A great deal of my time as a High School English teacher is spent editing. In my free time I work on my novel, and often times that means editing. Even in my free-free time--those times when God, family, writing and work are not requiring all my time--I search multiple listings* for homes and end up editing. My husband and I have decided there is absolutely no prerequisite for a real estate agent to spell, be concise, or use grammar rules of any sort.

How tragic that our culture puts so little emphasis on literacy that a professional has no need to be professional.

One thing I can't seem to get my students to understand that editing is not a one time proposition. Read what you've written. Read it out loud. Read it to someone else. Read it again. Perhaps you will still make an error, but your effort will make a much better product.

To my loyal readers who are eagerly awaiting my novel, I say all this to let you know that after a bit of polishing the first three chapters have been submitted to an editor--per request.



*For those who are not familiar with "multiple listings," this is the real estate business' fancy way of saying a house is searchable by other real estate agents, and in the day of the internet, house hunters everywhere.