At The Proofing Stage — At Last

Back in November I wrote my first Horror Story novel. It is a great story about an older gentleman who enjoys being retired and going to poetry readings. There he meets a most pleasant and gracious young lady who is willing to put up with him. They get involved in a wreck on a mountain road that leaves them unharmed but severely traumatized watching the car they had been in burn to a crisp on a ledge 200 feet below them.

The next day the young woman’s soulmate comes to visit, and the older gentleman has the graciousness to bow out gracefully. He decides at that point that Life has gotten to be more than he is now willing to deal with. He drops the poetry readings and moves into an assisted living facility. There he meets a young woman who has recently come on staff at the facility as a caregiver. As is the case in stories like this, they hit it off and they become close friends.

The woman from the car wreck married her soulmate, and they remained in contact with the gentleman. Over time the soulmate ends up going west on business, and disappears. At that point of time, the soulmate’s wife and the caregiver start having identical nightmares dealing with Halloween and Dia del Morte.

So the gentleman, his young caregiver, and the soulmate’s wife go on a quest together to find the reason behind the nightmares and to find the soulmate. That is when the real fun begins. I’ve already given away too much of the story, so I will stop the description of the plot here before I spoil it completely.

After doing an Alpha Read to get rid of the trivial errors, including rewriting the last two chapters to make the story end better, I printed a few Beta Copies and gave them to some people willing to help me edit the story for free. My last two Blog entries were about problems I encountered when trying to edit and correct the story based on how the Beta Readers had marked things up.

I ended up having to do a divide and conquer tactic on the corrections required to be able to get through the process with as little pain and suffering as possible. The good news is that I have now finished doing all of the corrections, and I now have a story that is better than the original copy. To that end I have uploaded the text and cover material to the publisher I work with, and I have now ordered a proof copy to peruse in detail for obvious errors.

Depending on how things go, I might have to make further corrections. When I finally get a proof copy that is, as far as I can see, error free, then I will release the book to market. When I do, I will obviously post the act here and elsewhere to let folks know that my latest novel is out there and ready to be purchased. Until then, it is a matter of going over the proof copy, correcting the errors found, and ordering another proof copy until I get a proof copy that appears error free.

I hope you enjoy the novel when it is finally released.