During this penultimate phase the 24 writers were split randomly among our 4 professional editors:

Jeni Chappelle | Carly Hayward |
Maria Tureaud | Justine Manzano

I was super excited to have Jeni Chappelle as my editor. I briefly worked with her before during #Revpit (a Twitter contest hosted by ReviseandResubmit.com to win a 5-week revision on your manuscript for free from a participating editor) where she gave me feedback on my submission because I was on her shortlist. Afterward I bought her Query/Synopsis/First 50 page review package.

I've really enjoyed her editing style and was interested to see how she would critique/edit my short story.

Needless to say she had some very poignant questions and suggestions - apart from some minor line and copy edits - that got me thinking about my characters more deeply.

The comment below really forced me to take another look at crafting consistency in my characterization.

I must have rewritten 5 sentences about 30 times before I felt like I got it right.

At least I think I got it write, I mean rite, I mean ... right...?

I definitely got to the point at midnight after editing for 3 hrs where I was unsure what words meant anymore.

I also really appreciated how she commented on the areas she liked as well. Being compared to Terry Pratchett and Douglass Adams is my dream, so mission accomplished. 🙌

#winning

After incorporating Jeni's edits, I had a good bit of insomnia. Then I let it sit for a day, and finally, today, just moments ago, I did my final self-editing. This consisted of throwing it into Grammarly (I highly recommend it) and going through the story with a fine-tooth comb - checking each word to make sure it was both necessary and the correct word for what I wanted to say.

At the end of it I kind of felt like I had become a victim of gravity.

But I survived the editing process.
And so will you.

Surviving Gravity - the final draft is back at the very front of this book for reference.