We have a winner for the 30th follower! She seems grand and when I decide what it is she has won... I shall send it and then make it public here.
I'm editing like mad and am preoccupied with the work at hand. It's like work, this editing. The writing writing is like playing. It's like playing badminton on hallucinogens with ovulating angels.
Editing is like work. Temping on Wall Street type work and I don't like it. What's so demoralizing about it is that your editor, if she's any good-- and mine is very very good-- finds your weakest spots as a writer and irons them out dele mark by dele mark.
You thought that no one would notice that weird thing about the grandma and just keep reading. Wrong. You thought your quirky use of punctuation and the word "and" was groundbreaking? Nope. You thought that your MFA from Columbia University gave you a complete understanding of correct comma placement and how to conjugate lay, lie, lain. Ha. Were you deluded!
That's were this is at. And ending a sentence with a preposition is bad English. It just happens to be how people from Chicago talk. Unfortunately.
