I have had more of a continuing education since I started writing here at SOL. It has been a pleasant experience so far. I have gotten better at spelling, punctuation and pay more attention to editing and continuity. But it is the details that have been amazing. Every chapter gets emails. Since I am trying to establish the flavor of a time in my life (late 50's)I have to use real places and things. Next I try to give some interest by twisting slightly some real events. But the things that are brought up beyond that are amazing. I wanted my protagonist to be in a civil war uniform so I had him get involved in reenacting. The only problem was the reenacting didn't really start till the 1960's at the hundredth anniversary of the war. So I cheated a little. I presented the 1913 last major reunion at Gettysburg as a reenactment and stated that reenacting then limped along till the 1960's. Who would pay attention to such a small detail? One reader cared enough to contact a friend who is an avid re-enactor to find out the truth and then nicely called me on it.
Next I served Yams at Thanksgiving. This email was a little terse but still within bounds. I found out that what I ate as a boy were sweet potatoes no matter what it said on the can. But by chance since I have spent a year of my life in Puerto Rico I have had real yams. Couldn't tell by me. I just thought that they were prepared by differently recipes. I love having these little things brought to my attention as I learn. I even added a slight revision to a story because of an error in procedure. Thank you Lisa.
Every day my inbox teaches once more That the Devil is in the Details. Thank you kind readers.