The final edit of The Blue Diamond has started. I'd hoped to release the book as early as Oct 1, but after some discussion, I had to go back and revise some dialogue in a few of the chapters. I also realized there were some unrealistic or inconsistent sections. The problem with this particular book is that a change in one section can affect several other elements. That means complete read-throughs while trying to pay attention to details like locations, names, and numbers.

I'm still surprised just how much effort needs to go in to make dialogue easy to read and understand while still sounding natural. I've revised some sections half a dozen times. When we carry on real conversations with people, we tend to ignore minor errors, pauses, or inconsistencies. Humans seem to have built in syntax error correction that we often don’t even notice. However, when dialogue is written, the queues that make that effortless are lost, so the words need to be arranged correctly. And then, there’s the darn commas! I’ve never had that much of an appreciation for commas till I started writing for publication!