Another Book Being Edited, I Hate This Part

OK, I admit this is old news by now, well if not old it’s been heard before.  I have six books in the old barn and this is number seven.  I should be used to this by now but I’m not.  Right now it is going through two edits and not by someone who will be doing the final edit but by two people who have a back ground in two different fields that are an important part of the overall story.  One I’m not too worried about.  Well that’s not true either.  This person will rip me a new one if I got anything wrong but that I can deal with.  It’s the other one that has me concerned.  ‘He’ will rip me a new one and leave me broken and bloody.  An excerpt from a much earlier blog follows…
‘I've had about ten people read the book and I only got one bad review.  Now I can't tell you that I don't respect this person and their opinion because I do.  The thing is he was the only guy to read it and as I told him before I handed it over to him it was written with a way a woman thinks and feels.  His actual words or at least five of them were, "You are no Steven King."  I'm glad that someone finally pointed that out to me because I must have been confused.  I went back and looked at my birth certificate and sure enough I'm not Steven King.  Damn who knew?’
Later he started reading my books with a much more open mind and although he has never commented on any of them individually he did tell me, just the other day actually, that everyone is entitled to one bad book.  I’m assuming he still holds that to the first one but I doubt that he ever reread the book and to be honest the poor man got the totally unrevised version of the book and there is no other way to put it, it was pretty bad.  Oh not the overall story and he even said that at the time but damn who could follow half of it.  When I went to do the first edit before handing it over to someone else I had trouble reading and keeping up with it.  The story was all there, the sequence was fine, but the typos and sometimes the remedial manor in which it was written was horrifying and I almost gave up.  It took me months to pick it up and fix it but I did and what came out of it was a book that I was and still am proud of.
Anyway getting back to the new one, George’s opinion on this one is important.  Is he going to find things wrong with it?  YES!  I wouldn’t expect anything else from him especially with it comes to this book.  For some reason George inspired a character in the new book that took me by surprise and the next thing I knew this guy, being a lot like George, came in like gangbusters and took over.  Like George this character was a police chief, although George has retired now, and is strong, dedicated to his job and the city he works to keep safe, is a man of honor, a quirky sense of humor at times, and most important he takes no crap from anyone.  Oh I couldn’t help myself I did name this character George.  Are there differences, most definitely and I hope my wonderful, extremely intelligent, handsome, amazing, and sometimes sensitive big brother remembers that.  Of course my big brother never had to deal with a malevolent, horribly evil, killer spirit that you couldn’t put in handcuffs and throw into a jail cell, at least, I don’t think he has.
I will now spend the next few months on an emotional roller-coaster while the book goes through all it has to before it is finally ready to be published.  During this time I will question why the hell I do this, what was I thinking when I started several years ago to even begin to believe I shouldn’t even be doing this, and wanting to go hide under my bed.  At some point I’ll pull myself together and remember the answer to that question.  I love it.  In so many ways I find myself in what I write.  I personally think there can be no better reason for anyone to do anything.
Someone else I need to mention here is a beautiful lady who inspired the story.  She took a picture and from that picture came a short story but I couldn’t let it rest there.  It haunted me.  At times that picture was all I thought about.  Finally I sat down and started writing the book.  Thank you Rima.
Also a special thank you to Regina Rochelle for taking over directing the book trailer for this book.