Orgasmic Proof Reading

I seem to have forgotten how to blog. It all started so well. Each week, a new post. Do you remember my first post? It was called The Manuscript Thief and was about me drunkenly letting one of my parent’s friends, Steve, take the unedited first draft of a manuscript home with him to read. This is a mistake that all new authors must avoid.

To cut a long story short he said he would go through it with a red pen and highlight any spelling or grammatical mistakes. Now, I learned how important it is to get yourself proof read when I prematurely released Tripping the Night Fantastic without seeking a proof reader. This mistake was reflected in the first few reviews. I then had to take the book off sale, make the necessary changes, and re-release it. So overall I was glad that Steve had offered to go through The Accidental Scoundrel (formally known as A Scoundrel for Love) manuscript with a red pen.

The problem is, he vanished. Months went by with little contact. It turns out he got a job in Scotland and moved without so much as a goodbye, or a, “Here’s your book back, sorry, I haven’t had time to look at it”. No, I wasted months waiting for him to hand it back so I could make the corrections and send it out into the world. Because of this the release date of the book has been delayed by 5 months.

Luckily the time away from the novel has allowed me to look at it with fresh eyes. The errors have revealed themselves to me and I have got the book to a point I am happy with. More importantly I have found myself a new proof reader!

She is the land lady of my local pub, Kerry. And here are four good reasons for why she makes an excellent proof reader –

1. She keeps me at a satisfactory level of drunkenness and hasn’t banned me from the pub regardless of my frustrating and intolerable behaviour when drunk.
2. She invited me up to her flat recently and I was surprised to discover a vast collection of books not dissimilar to my own. She reads. A lot.
3. She’s a bit of a grammar Nazi (one of the less frowned upon branches of Nazism) and has proof read a manuscript before for a writerly relative.
4. She has a very nice bottom. Now, this point may not have much to do with her abilities as a proof reader but it is very important.

It will be a few weeks before I get it back but I do trust her to actually give it back. (Unlike Steve! Pah to you Steve!). When she does hand it back, and says something like, “Oh Andy! It was marvellous! Funny and witty and charming, oh Andy, it was just fantastic. And there were hardly any mistakes! I do love a man with a good grasp of grammar!” And then she’ll probably swoon. Or have an unprompted orgasm, or something. What was I saying? Oh yes, when I do get it back I will announce the release date and send out review copies to anyone who wants one.