6 Days until the book release of “Providence of Souls!” on amazon.com

Today I want to blog about my editor and friend, Casondra Brewster. Her nickname is Casz. Be sure to check out her blog at Casz’s Fiction Farm. You will see from her blog that there isn’t anything she can’t do.

Casondra Brewster has been a word smith for more than two decades, mostly as a journalist and corporate communicator. Stories are not the only thing she creates – if not at her desk getting words down, she may be found digging in the dirt of her microfarm, or in her garage banging a motorcycle into submission, or creating nonsensical things into artful beauty. She resides in the Cascade Foothills in Western Washington with her husband, children, chickens, ducks, a shelter-rescue dog and a 55 gallon aquarium of fish, that, according to Casz, lead an enviable life of leisure.

Casz and I work really well together and she is solely responsible for teaching me how to write. I took the quick course and just decided to write a book. Casz was steadfast in what probably felt like a storm of edits, she edited the book three times! Each time I sent the file back to her she said, smiling and laughing, that it looked as if a cat had walked all over the keyboard (I don’t have a cat). I discovered that I am a “throw the baby out with the bathwater” writer. I like to delete entire scenes and rewrite them from scratch. “Providence of Souls” had at least five different endings.

I think Casz is able to read minds, which is great skill for an editor to have. She was able to find the exact areas of the book that I knew were unwritten, unexplained, and confusing to the reader, and she knew how to ask just the right question to help me continue writing. Oh, and I apologize to Casz for my grammar, oy vey! I’m still trying to figure out punctuation; it took me until the final edit to learn how to correctly use a semicolon! See, I just used one (crossed fingers). Let’s just say that I am forever grateful. There wouldn’t be a book without Casz, especially not one polished to perfection!

Thank you to Casz from the bottom of my heart!