Flying Story

"Bill Baker" wrote in message
...
Nice little memoir snippet, Danny. I wouldn't sweat the copyediting that
much at this stage, despite the nitpicking you're getting from others.
I've been a professional writer for more than twenty years and I would
rate your copy as fairly clean for a one-recheck draft. Contrary to the
expectations of non-professionals, fiction editors don't discount
submissions unless the grammar and spelling errors are well into the low
end of egregious. If it's a saleable yarn on first glance, they won't
chuck it into the slush pile.

Editing for the sake of pace, focus, character development, etc., however,
can be very, very valuable. Unfortunately, an editor who can provide you
with feedback with that level of insight and engagement is much more
rare--and expensive.

As to the biz aspects, Ed's already given you the low-down. I would
especially heed his trenchant comments on what it takes to land a book
contract in the niche market of military aviation memoirs. I would only
add that--and I suspect that Ed was being nice in not mentioning this--if
your flying tales don't include combat experience, they're going to be
real tough to sell. Might want to aim for placing individual stories with
the slicks.

Be ruthless with yourself. Edit like a mofo. And always remember, a
writer is never "through" until the first shovelful of dirt hits his/her
coffin lid.


Thanks all for the inputs. I had thought about the lack of combat, but I
have my mental break down because of being bullied at NASA Johnson Space
Center as the climax of the book. With the crazy astronaut and the recent
"postal" employee at NASA, I think my story of "going postal" (but without
any violance) might be worthy of getting published. For example I have
documents to prove NASA lied to the doctors in 1999 to have me locked up
against my will and I have document to prove NASA was involved with a local
judge to prevent me from getting an attorney or a hearing. It is amazing
how much is documented when you are hospitalized. My father tells me they
asked him for permission to erase my memory in 1999. In Feb, 2006 my boss
at the time told me he thought they would have erased my memory if he had
said yes.

Danny Deger


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