Copy Editors

A copy editor is a person who checks your manuscript for spelling, grammar and punctuation. They might also catch overuse of words, choreography problems, awkward sentences and things that confuse the reader.

I have the same copy editor for my Heart books at Berkley. I realized this when she corrected my second manuscript (Heart Thief) for one of my made-up words...spellshield and a couple of other words that weren't consistent with HeartMate, the first book.

This is not the person who worked on Road of Adventure when it went from trade to mass market size. I could tell. How?

In my books, my cats refer to themselves as "Cats." Uppercase at all time. As Me, Mine is uppercase at all time in their dialogue. Though Road of Adventure is a contemporary paranormal romance, the cat in it -- a ghost cat going for wings -- does this, too. ("The Cat needs food," Boris pressed on. "Shauna feeds the feral Cats in her neighborhood. That's how she got Me." "That's what I'm afraid of," Jake muttered.)

I think the Me, Mine stayed, but the Cats got lost in the shuffle...anyway, I corrected them and the page proofs are on their way back to NY.

May no grammar, spelling, or punctuation shadow your mind when writing today!
Robin