Good morning. Buenos dias. Buongiorno. Guten Morgen.

I’ve been up since 4:50 (I know this because I checked, hoping it was later.) and the only thing I can say is “UGH”! I’m in so much pain, it’s wrong. I slept in a delusional fit early last night, and again for a few hours early this morning. I am trying not to let the pain get to me, otherwise it will result in yet another migraine from the stress it is placing on my body. I do NOT need that. I do, however, need to be adopted. Any takers?

I suspect I am in so much neck pain partly due to my marathon laundry session yesterday. Did it all need to be done immediately? No, but I was trying to make the most out of a Sunday after suffering on Saturday through migraine hell. My efforts resulted in two phone calls: One to my mattress manufacturer, the second to the store where I bought said mattress.

Upon removing the mattress protector to throw it in the wash, a protector which has remained on the mattress at all times (I have more than one, obviously) since I purchased it, I discovered a hole in the top of the actual mattress. It was not there two weeks ago, or even a month ago. My immediate reaction was “What the fuck is THAT?!” At first I thought it was merely a surface tear, which wouldn’t have been an epic deal, but no, it’s a one inch by one inch hole. If you stick your thumb into it, you will hit a spring pretty quickly. The second you do and realize what a piece of crap a nearly $2000 mattress is on the inside, you feel a plethora of things. Mostly I was glad I got it on sale with my bedroom furniture because in that initial moment, I wanted to throw it at someone.

The mattress manufacturer said I should try to work with the store first since I didn’t buy it directly from them, but that if they don’t make it right I should call their warranty department and see what they are able to do for me. Yeah, I bet. 😦

I will say this: The store called me back pretty quickly. On a Sunday. Damn near unheard of. After a nice conversation with one of their “furniture specialists”, I took some photos for him and e-mailed them off yesterday afternoon. I am sure they will want to send someone out to personally inspect it before deciding if they’re going to honor the “lifetime warranty” and replace it. If it weren’t for the spring and the fact that it is a hole that will only get worse with time, I’d let it slide. The fact that they guaranteed the mattress when I bought it means they should stand behind what they sell. I hope they make good on their promise because if they don’t, you can expect to hear the store name and the names of all of the employees assisting me blasted from here to kingdom come. Chica takes notes! If the manufacturer screws with me, they’ll definitely be hearing from me via social media and every other means of communication.

I was told by two employees that it sounds like the mattress might be a “production lemon”, but that they do need to determine if the damage is their responsibility or not. I may be a major badass, but I assure you: I have never harmed a mattress in my life. Besides, you’d have to take the protector off to do that kind of damage and the protector is 100% in tact. You do the math. I loved being asked if I “had a dog”, because we all know a dog that puts such a precise, spring sized hole in a mattress, right? OY!

I was able to do some editing yesterday and talk with my client, albeit briefly. I worked on 80 pages and I am still coming across so many issues. I don’t want to prolong the process, but I don’t want to submit work back that is going to require another year of additional edits after the revisions and rewrites are done. Since this client has always self-published, she is not used to the editing process, knows nothing about it, and probably doesn’t realize how time-consuming it can be. The more work I do, the more problems I find.

                                    “I’ve got 99 problems and this manuscript is one!”

If you find continuity issues in chapter 22 and they exist through to the end of the manuscript, it requires you to go back to the beginning and correct things from page one all the way back to the current chapter, solely because continuity errors are a bigger issue as you continue to work. You will quickly lose your patience as you find these little gifts. I don’t know how most people write, but I check my work thoroughly and would never submit a first draft to ANYONE to edit. I fixed my first draft within the first few months of writing book one, so yes, I lose my patience with people who don’t read and proof their work before submitting it to me.

When you’ve got dates in a manuscript, make sure you look at the calendar for that year and get your facts straight. If you reference a full moon on a date when there was no full moon, you don’t look like a creative writer, you look like a moron. Perhaps I’m the only person that notices such things (probably not), but you MUST have your facts straight, be it fiction or non-fiction. You can’t play around with certain things. The majority of your readers won’t notice little things, but the percentage that does notice will tell you, and no one wants to be embarrassed by continuity issues, or other things that make me grind my teeth from the stress of having to work on something so distracting as a professional. I’m developing a twitch in my eye from dealing with this.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled insanity. Me? I need a nap. Apparently writing about this made the pain worse. No, I’m not surprised.

copyright © 2015 by Lisa Marino & Blackbird Serenity LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.