Susan, this is the faceless nameless writer wanna-be who is responsible for checking for typos, stylstic glitches, spellings (oh, we've had the jolly little war over that) and whatnot, before it goes to galleys.

That's what I thought the job was. It sounds like this guy is making comments of the sort that are appropriate in a critique group, even if one disagrees with them and chooses to ignore them, but not at this late stage.

I mean, there's a guy in my critique group who thinks he knows everything about the 19th century, and complains every time a male character treats my heroine like the intelligent person she is--e.g. the hero discussing business or estate management with her, or a solicitous servant backing off when she assures him she doesn't need any assistance. All I can say is his idea of proper 1810 male and female behavior would make for a hella boring story. So, I politely ignore his advice. But if I drew a copyeditor with his opinions and the gall to edit my story to match them, I WOULD go medieval on his sorry arse.

Holy cow, Deb. What a pillock.

t /speechless.

every writing class has one! My class pillock didn't like how I wrote kids. But I have some manners...I didn't point out it had been 300 years since he'd been one, and maybe my memory was clearer.

Pillock's the word, Fay. Although I've been using "prat" just as much. And since they get to remain faceless, genderless and notes-on-paperish, I've no idea who or what he/she may be.

Still, my publisher loves me and if this jinglebrained ninnyhammer hadn't gone and done this on top of copy-editing a complete dinsosaur of a version of the novel, thereby forcing me to compare every damned word between the red-inked printout and my screen, I'd be in a much better mood, you bet.

Victor, I edit rather a lot as well for other people, but I don't stick my own views into someone else's character's brain.

Oh, I know. There's a definite line between preserving the author's voice and intent, and arrogance, masturbation and trying to make one's self feel better by belittling others. Sorry you got stuck with one of the latter.

I have had to rewrite entire articles from the bottom up, on the fly, when we can't find the author at deadline. Of course, we're talking about two completely different things here, but it's worth mentioning, because when I have to do that, I usually announce loudly that the articles officialy more "me" than "journalist X." Of course, I've never had "journalist X" complain, so there you are.

I'm big on being around if my work's being used somewhere; hell, why wouldn't the writer be, especially for a non-fic press piece? I'd be camped by the phone until deadline had passed.

QUERY: Can anyone beta a very short piece (not Buffy, not fanfic, at the request of someone for magazine submission)? Needs to not have one word appear anywhere before publication. VERY short, only about 400 words?

I'd be happy to look at it, Deb. What kind of beta reading are you looking for? Nitpicks, general impressions, or...?

Anne, fast impressions, mood mostly, setting, anything glaringly wrong.

Sending....

....aaaaand, sent.

It's a quickie, because it had to be under 500 words.

Got it. I'll turn it around as quickly as I can.