Aaargghhh! Grammar is not my strong suit as it was pointed out to me by a few of my beta readers – “jumbled verb tenses”. Great – lacking one of the most basic skills required of a writer. I’m going to pull a cope-out and blame the 1970’s education system and use of an “open-classroom” approach at the Stephen Palmer School when I was in 5th and 6th grade. Aimee Lambert Poor and Deb Aldrich – did you have the same in your Needham elementary schools?

So, I needed to “unjumble” my draft. This past week, I spent a good amount of time poring through every line to ensure every sentence had the same verb tense. Past tense was recommended, so a lot more “ed” verb endings appeared on the pages. This type of close reading also helped me further refine my characters, edited out unnecessary information and created a more compelling opening. At least that’s what I think.

If you’d like to review Draft #3, just let me know. I’m submitting it tonight as my last class assignment. Then, it’s finally on to the rest of the story. What will Aunt Flo have to say to Eliza? What will Eliza decide to do? Stay tuned.

And, if you’d like to play the annoying game of “Name That Verb Tense” – shoot me over the correct definitions of each treatment in the picture above. I’ll randomly select one of you that scores 100% and send you a $10 Amazon gift card. Use it now, or save it to buy my book around 2022!