🚀 go-pugleaf

  Okay, look:

  I'm a newbie.  I have a few publishing credits to my name--one short
  story and a bunch of articles.  I know--big f deal. 

  I have an agent to handle my work.  Again, so what?  I'm an amateur.

  But I have a problem.  I'm an engineer by trade.  I make my money
  in the software world. I haven't had a lot of experience producing
  manuscripts that follow the generally accepted rules of English.

  What does this mean?  What this means is I make a lot of stupid grammatical
  mistakes in my manuscripts.  Yes, I use spell-checkers.  Yes, I use
  grammar checkers. Yes, I let my wife read what I write.

  Even after all the automated and spousal checking, my agent will STILL
  return pages of corrections to me.  Arggg. 

  So here's the deal: I would be interested in procuring the services
  of someone who can proofread my material.  I'd like for this person
  to be located in the SF South Bay area. I would strongly prefer someone
  who is currently a student of English, or who has a degree in the same.

  I will pay real money.  How much real money?  I don't know.  I'm not
  rich and I haven't published a lot. But my agent and I just went through
  the first draft of my new book and spent two solid weeks changing
  "it's" to "its" (Yes I know the difference.  How could I have gotten an 
  agent otherwise?  I just type "it's" ALL the time.  I can't help it.)
  Neither my agent nor I can afford to spend so much time on stupid mistakes.

  Maybe you can. We'll negotiate a rate.

  This means you will need to know which of the following is correct:

  "I think blah...," he said.

  "I think blah. . .,"he said.

  "I think blah..."he said.

  "I think blah. . ." he said.

  You will need to know all those things that I do with annoying frequency
  when my Shertzer is out of reach. You will need to provide me the
  corrections necessary so that my agent can send my manuscripts to editors
  without further manipulation on my part and needless proofreading on her 
  part. 

  If you are interested in doing this kind of thing for money, drop me 
  a line on the Internet or Compuserve. 

  Thanks in advance,

  Joe        jdm@cadence.com    74017,310  (Compuserve)
-- 
Joe Mastroianni          AKA: AA6YD  AA6YD @ N6LDL.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NA
Cadence Design Systems   Compuserve:  74017,310  Genie: JOE-M
Santa Clara Ca.          "Up the airy mountain;down the rushy glen; we
jdm@cadence.com           daren't go a hunting; for fear of little men "