THE GREAT CRITIQUE----NOT!

Well, really I can't call "Aunt Lutie's Blue Moon Cafe" a new book. Haven't we all read about authors who claim they've written a book in six weeks, edited it in two days, and it was in the bookstores within a year? I wish I could write that fast and had that kind of luck with publishing. I don't know if it's such a good sign that I'be been working (off and on) on this book for four years.

I actually wrote the first draft pretty fast. It started with an idea that I decided to share with my critique group. As I wrote the book, I shared it with my fellow writers. I managed to get some fairly good help with that first draft. By the time I completed those corrections, the group had faded away. And my life was in one of those you-gotta-be-kidding busywork runs. So the book went into the file cabinet.

Two friends and I later formed a line-by-line critique group which is still a viable part of my writing life today. I thought it would be great to haul out "Aunt Lutie" and get her in shape so I could seek an agent, publisher, or both. I was so enthusiastic on the next day we met. I listened and critiqued my friends work with enthusiasm. When it was my turn, I began reading the first chapter, with copies in their capable hands.

And bombed!

I can look back at the experience now and smile. Then I was crushed. They didn't get my book at all! Now, I know I was expecting too much of my dear friends--one born and reared in Los Angeles, the other in Hawaii. They were city gals so far removed from the south, the speech patterns, the cultural posturing, there was no way they were going to understand this book in order to critique this. Read it one day, yes, but at that time they were trying to correct everything from the grammar, to the spelling, and the description. It was irritating back them, understandable now. But at the time, I threw it back in the drawer again.

And then my dear editor friend, one who has counseled me along my writing path for years, Regina Williams, "The Storyteller Magazine," started her own publishing company, "Mockingbird Lane Press" (www.mockingbirdpress.com)asked me if I had a book for her to consider. Did I have a book!

Gina is one humorous lady on the other side of that very serious, unique editor. She wants humorous or down right weird Southern tales. So I downloaded the book onto my computer and have been working on edits/rewrites/deletes--I have a few more pages and then will print it off for one last looksee.

And then Gina critiques. YIPES!