The betas are working on their read-through of TRACE, and Bri just started her final edits. We will be doing our tandem edits this weekend before sending out the book for formatting. This is a snapshot of what part of the first page looks like right now though. However, this doesn’t include my corrections and changes, since I have a different method of doing a ‘final pass.’ Which means reading it on paper and red marking the fuck out of it. Right now, none of my edits have hit this thing yet. I will also make final changes to the story as I catch continuity issues or story flaws. And I’ve caught a few.

What does it mean to be a beta reader?

A beta reader is like one of God’s little angels sent to Earth just for authors. There aren’t many reliable ones, and the ones that are out there are worth their weight in vegan burritos. I assure you, vegan burritos are expensive. I have one beta that has been with me since the start. As far as betas go, Raylene is probably why my books have as few typos as they do. The girl is a veritable hound for sneaky quotation marks, and she’s a rockstar for finding misspelt words. I often confuse shudder and shutter and the embarrassing retart comment. The girl in my book who used the word retart is pretty tarty.

I have three new beta readers this time, Tanya, Chanel and Abbigail, who have been just beyond helpful. Their input is really instilling a lot of magic to Trace and Vivi’s story.

I’m thankfully about to get very busy starting this coming weekend. I won’t have time to sit and think about all the writing I’m not doing. TRACE will be in the bag come Sunday night though and off to the formatters before I leave for DC next week.

Then… when I return from Niagara, JONAH will be dying to burst from my fingertips.