The importance of a fresh pair of eyes

I had dinner within my writing buddy Carol Westron last night.  Carol is a crime writer, and a fellow Pentangle Press author. I've agreed to read her manuscript of About The Children, the book which she intends to publish in January.

The deal with Pentangle Press is that we're producing books that are every bit as well written - and edited - as anything you would buy from a mainstream publisher.  And that means handing over our babies to someone else to read and edit.

It's vital to get a fresh pair of eyes to look at your manuscript and tease out the errors before you send it out into the world.  In Panthera : Death Spiral Carol spotted that there wasn't time for a minor  character to get from one location to another in the timeframe I'd given him.  That necessitated several pieces of re-writing, but it's one less mistake for a reader to find when the book goes out into the world.