Will iconic images recorded in the grooves of an ancient vase unite the Holy Land or rip it further apart?

THE VASE

A novel by Mark M. DeRobertis

Muhsin Muhabi is a Palestinian potter, descended from a long line of potters. His business is run from the same shop owned by his ancestors since the day his forebears moved to Nazareth. The region's conflict saw the death of his oldest son, and rogue terrorists are in the process of recruiting his youngest in their plot to assassinate the Pope and Israeli prime minister.

Professor Hiram Weiss is an art historian at Nazareth’s Bethel University. He is also a Shin Bet operative on special assignment. With the help of fellow agent, Captain Benny Mathias, he plans to destroy the gang responsible for the death of his wife and only child. He puts a bomb in the ancient vase he takes on loan from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.

Mary Levin, the charming assistant to the director of Shin Bet, has lost a husband and most of her extended family to recurring wars and never-ending terrorism. She dedicates her life to the preservation of Israel, but to whom will she dedicate her heart? The brilliant professor from Bethel University? Or the gallant captain who now leads Kidon?

Harvey Holmes, the Sherlock of Haunted Houses, is a Hollywood TV host whose reality show just flopped. When a Lebanese restaurant owner requests his ghost-hunting services, he believes the opportunity will resurrect his career. All he has to do is exorcise the ghosts that are haunting the restaurant. It happens to be located right across the street from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.




Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Not Errors-but Optional Revisions

My last submission of John Dunn to my publisher for editing was the best, of course, but I'm still improving that MS. But these improvements are not corrected errors. For instance. I italicized the word Egads in Captain Walmsley's exclamation when he responds to John Dunn's informing him that he was moving to Zululand as a Zulu chieftain. I didn't have to italicize it. But since I want the reader to know it's a word being stressed, I chose to italicize it.

Also, I moved the text that labeled two rivers on my Zululand map. Moving the text wasn't correcting any errors, but I think where I placed the text now is better than where I had placed the text before. Again, an optional thing.

Also I deleted a word in another sentence and replaced it with a semicolon. It wasn't an error, but I think it reads better now.

And today, I decided to make Bantu plural instead of Bantus. Since the Bantu in my book refer to themselves as Bantu, singular and plural, I decided to go with the narrative mention of the word to match the way it's used in the dialogue. It's not an error being corrected, I think, it's just optional, and I chose the best option.

But that's it so far. Is it enough for me to send another revised MS, even though those above revisions are very minor? And very, very minor, they are. That remains to be seen. I suppose if I make any more revisions, come Monday, or Sunday night, I will send the latest MS on Monday, like I've been doing. And why not? It's not like I'm sending three per day. It's only one per week.

So yeah. Every Monday, I'll just keep sending the improved MS every Monday until, either it's published, or until I've got no more improvements to make. Either one is logical, of course. And at the rate I'm revising at this point, this next Monday may actually be the last revised file.

And then I do believe the edits will begin, since the proposed release date is November 8th. I suspect it will bet pushed back some, like Second Chance was. If it does, that's okay. We'll see.

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