A Proofing Frenzy

After reading Sunday’s Newspaper Days blog post titled Jaws, a reader asked how we kept the giant shark from decaying. It was packed in ice on the boat, and once we got it to my friend’s taxidermy shop, he and his son went to work skinning it. I didn’t stay around to watch that, just in case they handed me a knife and told me to get to work. Even though the shark was dead, I was pretty sure I could lose a finger or two if I tried that. Somebody else asked what became of the finished mount. I believe it was on display at the Seattle Aquarium for quite some time, but that was over 35 years ago, so I have no idea if it is still there.

I printed out the manuscript for my new book, Big Lake Massacre, and Miss Terry has been in a proofing frenzy for a couple of days now, making corrections as she goes. By the time she finally knocked off somewhere around 7 p.m. last night, she had finished more than three-quarters of the book. She has a dental appointment this afternoon that may take a while, so I don’t know if she will have any time to work on it today.

While she was doing that, I was making all of the corrections Terry found necessary. I also wrote the first chapter for the next book in the series, Big Lake Hoarder, which will be included as a teaser or preview of coming attractions at the end of Big Lake Massacre. When I was finished with that, I printed it out, and Terry took a break from what she was doing to give it a quick read through and said she liked it.

A couple of days ago, I received the formatted paperback manuscript for my last John Lee Quarrels book, The Road to Wrinkle Ranch, back from Scarlett Braden Moss, an author friend of mine who does book formatting for me. And yesterday my cover artist, Elizabeth Mackey, sent me the paperback cover. I will submit it to Amazon today and it should be available in a few days.

And with that done, I will start on my author’s newsletter, which will be sent out to my subscribers once the new book is live. If you would like to be added to the free newsletter mailing list, just send me your e-mail address at editor@gypsyjournal.net. I promise not to spam you or to share your information with anyone. And I have good news for my subscribers. I will be choosing one name from the list to win a new Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. Could you be the lucky winner?

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. I wonder how often he gets results.

Thought For The Day – May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you’re going, and the insight to know when you’ve gone too far.