My friend Brendan, the

My friend Brendan, the crazy proprietor (he hates it when I call him that) of Pizzakaya , recently finished looking over the entire 361 pages of my book manuscript. (Thank you, Brendan!) Now I'm going over it again, marking in more changes of my own and thinking about his comments.

In addition to the expected corrections of awkward and incorrect language use, Brendan gave some real thought to the structure of the book and to what worked and didn't work in my stories. His insight is really valuable and I've taken to heart some ideas that will make the book more enjoyable and interesting to read.

I have a lot of rewriting to do now, but I think it will improve the book immensely. My goal is to have the MS done and a book proposal to send out to agents/publishers by the end of January.

Being a writer is like being an actor. It's not necessarily your talent that carries you. Who you know, people who are willing to promote you, recommend you, and use your work. are the ones who count in my career now. I'm developing connections with a few mentors and friendly editors, so with some luck my book will eventually see the light of day on a bookstore shelf. Perhaps before the end of the next millennium. (That's 3001, by the way.)

I hope it's sooner. I need the royalty checks. :-)