OOPS! I been snowed under the last couple of days. Yes, I have spherical's edits. He really had a bit of a challenge with 'strange love' as it's already been thoroughly edited and therefore any changes he could suggest were more for the sake of change (or personal opinion on word choice or sentence structure) than correcting errors, ie sentence fragments, which I tend to enjoy using.
Spherical either didn't 'fall into the trap' or missed the frequent use of passive voice (which my last editor, bless her, tried hard to remove) which I used to mirror the passivity of the protagonists.
Spherical was also kind enough to take a look at another one of my stories, Time Travel. Although his comments were useful, I think he missed the mark slightly on the way the story was structured (the frequent repetition reinforcing the rigidity of time, in contrast to the elasticity of time the protag experienced) but again that's a personal thing and technically his comments were correct. Again, it was really a bit of a false trial for him because both stories have previously been edited proir to publication.
All in all I think spherical did a great job. Editing is always a painful process (for the writer!) and it's easy to dismiss the editor's efforts, but it's an essential function (we've just taken a copy editor on at GUD) and the end result should be a negotiation between editor and author.
If I wanted to really put spherical to the test, I have that novel I wrote when I was 18...
Spherical, I'll email you later today.
