Ultranumb74: Blog

Ok, folks! I've finally got an editor working on "Saving". We've decided to work over the most recent chapters (10-12) and then work backwards from there. One thing I've noticed: for some stupid reason when I'm converting from .doc to .html and/or uploading chapters, there have been instances where stuff has disappeared or changed. Some of these have simply been omissions of a word or two to formating. I'd noticed it before, as an example, in the prologue when I'd switched from using caps to using italics for word emphasis. I'd went through and changed from the caps to the italics, uploaded the updated chapter only to find that the updated chapter had reverted to the caps again. Not sure why the hell stuff like that is happening, but hopefully the editor and I can catch all those little problems. I know there've been instances of this happening as recently as chapter 10, so that may explain why the vote rating has plummeted since posting the new chapters.

As for new chapters, chapter 13 may be the last updated chapter for the next few months. Between now and mid-September I'll be seriously swamped with real-life issues. My daughter is flying over from the States to visit me for 2 months here in Germany, so I may not get a whole lot of writing done. There is also the issue of having to pack my house up and move by mid-September. Whether or not it's on to a new Air Force base or off into retirement, depending on how I do on this last promotion test, I'll have to be getting my house packed and shipped, my truck shipped and all that other "fun" stuff involved in moving. Simply put, I may have very limited time to write over the course of the next few months.

Regardless of what happens on the military front, "Saving One Another" is not finished. Once I get settled in, whenever and wherever that may be, I'll get back to writing. I'll still try to respond to feedback/comments as I receive them, so please continue to let me know what you like or dislike about "Saving".

As I stated in my earlier blog post from today, I'm w/out an editor. I happened to check out the prologue and found that, for whatever reason, SOL had changed an italicized word to all caps. So, I started reading through the entire story and realized that I needed to upload the updated chapters that hadn't been seen by an editor because there were a small number of plot, grammatical and format mistakes. I can't say that I caught everything, but hopefully most of them.

Those of you who've voted my story low, please let me know why you're voting it low. I can't very well improve my story if y'all vote but don't send any feedback. I can only surmise that maybe it's because chapter 10 was a pretty dark chapter. Well, I won't appologize for it simply because life is just like that; sometimes it's dark and violent. PTSD is like that as well. Some authors out there like to present a utopian view in their stories; I prefer to present a fairly realistic view with my stories. The utopian approach is too predictable and too cookie-cutter; once you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all. I make no appologies for the violence in "Saving" because it's an integral part of the story. If you don't like the violence, then perhaps closer attention needs to be paid to the codes for the story.

Ok, so in the past I said I'd have updates posted, but unfortunately that hasn't happened yet. It seems that both editors I've been using have decided to not help out. I haven't heard from them in a week-and-a-half. That means I've decided to search for another editor, but so far haven't had any luck.

This leads me to decide if I should post new chapters as-is or wait until I find a new editor and have the old chapters corrected first. This is something I've been thinking about for several days now and have decided to post new chapters. Once I get a new editor, I'll have him or her go through the old chapters that haven't been edited and help me get those fixed.

So, I hope y'all won't judge the new chapters too harshly if there are some errors in them.

Well, the prologue and chapter 1 have been updated. Chapter 1 has some minor rewording. Hopefully these two are a bit easier to read.

Ciao!

Ultranumb74

Obviously, I've been unable to get the updated version and new chapter of "Saving One Another" posted. I just found out that one of my editors had a personal issue that came up that took priority, so he hadn't been able to get to working on my story yet. I totally agree with why, so that means the updates and new chapter are delayed. Please be patient because with what he's going through, I don't want to have the appearance that my story is in any way more important than what he's going through. Because it isn't. Trust me on this.

Ultranumb74