Today I got an e-mail from my editor about Glass Houses. Her page-long message included an eleven-page overview of her suggestions and her version of three re-worked chapters.  A hard copy of the edited manuscript  is on the way and should arrive Monday or Tuesday.

The message and summary are effusively positive. The more she worked with the manuscript, the more she fell in love with the story.  One reader down, a couple of million to go.

After reading over all her suggestions, I have to say I’m more than pleased. Most involve combining and re-arranging chapters.  In a few places, she’d like to see me add some dialogue. The hardest are her suggestions for me to write more about what I thought and felt about things that were happening.

Writing emotional content is my biggest weakness. It’s mostly absent from the original Glass Houses manuscript. The writer’s group has continuously asked for more in Addicted. Hopefully I’m up for the challenge.

She sees lots of connections between my parents and the way they lived their lives and mine that I hadn’t noticed. Now that she’s called them to my attention, they are obvious to me. Guess I’m still a slow learner.

The editor also wrote a first draft of a blurb about the book. The blurb is what you see inside the front cover of a hardback or on the back of  a paperback.  She suggested:

Growing up with the Glass family meant growing up in Kentucky with enough aunts, uncles, and cousins to form a battalion – and enough quirks, secrets, and addictions to keep counselors busy for years.  But for all the oddities and idiosyncrasies, there was an abundance of love and loyalty. Michael Rupured managed to grow up, come out, and find himself amidst the colorful chaos of his mother’s extended family.  Armed with a few true friends, a sharp sense of humor, and the unconditional love of one beloved aunt, Michael shows that glass is indestructible

Reading the blurb gives me cold chills! She’s also made a lot of suggestions about using the glass metaphor more throughout the book. Great idea.

Among her suggestions are several chapters that need to be cut from the book. She said that while they are beautifully written, they don’t really go with the rest of the story. On the plus side, she suggests using them for short essays to promote the book. Great idea that I look forward to learning more about.

I still need to write the last chapter of Addicted.  Hopefully I’ll knock it out sometime over the long weekend.  Including the last chapter, I’ll have about 8,000 words to submit to the writer’s group, probably half at a time. That will put me on track to have a finished manuscript before the end of the year.

Eighteen months ago, the idea of writing a book had never occurred to me. Before the end of this year, I will have written two. Hopefully, next year there will be a published author living here in…

My Glass House