On To Stage Two

I finished all of Terry’s suggested corrections for my new John Lee Quarrels book yesterday and then sent it off to Judy Rinehimer, my second proofreader, to begin stage two of the process. And then, when she’s done and I make her changes, I will send it off to Roberta for stage three.

When those changes are done I will print out the entire manuscript for Terry to read through one more time and then send it off to Roberta for a final read-through. I know that sounds like a lot of redundancy, but that’s what it takes to get it right. And even then, I know that the gremlins may slip in during the middle of the night and pull their shenanigans, and somebody will find a typo. I appreciate it when they let me know so we can correct that, too.

Our friend Jennifer’s daughter Ashley, from across the street, had a problem with her Mercury Marquis the other day and had to have it towed home. It would turn over but not start, and we couldn’t figure out why. Because the tow truck left it sitting in their front yard, we pushed it into our second driveway, and yesterday Jesse and his friend Scott were over here troubleshooting the problem and a code reader said to reset the fuel pump.

The problem was, nobody knew where the reset switch was, so I Googled it, and Google said it was in the trunk, near one of the taillights. Jesse opened the trunk, and while he and Scott were trying to figure out how to get the liner out of the trunk to access the taillights, I suggested that first, they should push the reset switch on the inside sidewall of the trunk, where the big yellow sticker said Fuel Pump Reset Switch. Jesse did and the car started right up. I may not be much of a mechanic, but I do know how to read.

During the afternoon, Jesse and Jennifer came over to visit for a while, and we spent a couple of hours chatting about this and that and everything in between, basically solving all the problems in the world.

After they left, Terry made homemade biscuits and sausage gravy for dinner. Then she baked a batch of peanut butter cookies and shared them and the leftover biscuits and gravy with Jesse and Jennifer, since he had said that sounded like it would make a wonderful breakfast. I figure people who put up with me on a regular basis deserve some perks, right?

Congratulations Norma Heck, winner of our drawing for an autographed copy of Overlooked Florida. We had 103 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon.  Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – Behind every successful man is a woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.