A good editor

What a pleasure it is having a good editor. I’ve said that before. It’s worth repeating.

I just received the first edits on my next young adult novel, The Crappy Used Diary. I’m using two editors for this one, Rosemary Hardin, who I used for my Wizards Trilogy books, and Mary McColl, who helped me with the update to Keeping Private Idaho and my latest book, Anjel. This time, I’m using them both, Rosemary for the first read, and Mary for the final edits (usually two reads).

It is such a relief to not agonize over the placement of commas, missed question marks, and grammatical boo-boos. More than that, using a good editor gives you confidence that your story flows correctly, the scenes are in the right sequence, and you don’t have character relationships cockeyed.

Editors are great sounding boards. They tell you when you’re off track, when they don’t get what you’re trying to say, and when you’ve said too much or too little. They are your first, best readers.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have a great editor. If you don’t, I’m willing to share mine. Send me an email, rickjust at rickjust dot com. I’ll put you in touch.