As I’ve mentioned before, Help Wanted is a fictionalized account of a true story. When the woman whose story it is — who I call “Amy” in the book — read it, she suggested two more scenes that might help illustrate some of the points the story was trying to make.

I wrote the two scenes and let her review them. “Amy” gave them her stamp of approval. Then I had to integrate the scenes into the book. I wrote that story in a much more compact way than it actually occurred. This is partly because I didn’t have the heart to write so much bad stuff. I had to include some, to tell the story. Because I tightened up the story so much, I had to use a shoe-horn to get the new scenes to fit in.

Having done that, more easily than I feared, I moved on to do a paper edit. That’s just what it sounds like: I print the whole thing out (my printer does double-sided, which rocks) and take a red pen to it.

Let me put it this way: Only two pages didn’t have any red ink. Two.

Still, I’m feeling good about it. That much red means it was a productive editing pass. I may have to rinse-repeat after entering all the changes, though. So many changes….

I think I’m making good progress. Who knows, maybe it will be published sooner than I originally thought!