What comes first? Beta/alpha reading or editing? 



By Wendy C Allen
eelkat_red_scarf.jpgWendy Christine Allen, 2019, able to sit up in a chair for the first time in years, and able to raise up my arm and wiggle fingers. This was when I started playing Witcher 3 on Twitch as part of my physical therapy to regain finger movement. Playing Witcher 3 daily from 2016 to 2019, is how I regained the use of my thumb and two for fingers on my right hand... it is also why I stopped playing Witcher 3 in 2019, once I had strengthen my two forefingers enough to start typing again.

Wendy Christine Allen, Old Orchard Beach's Autistic Author, Artist, Illustrator, & Art Car Designer

Counting Down to the September 23, 2028 50th Anniversary of my first published book (September 23, 1978)

If you are here looking for The Twighlight Manor series, The Crystonite Wars series, The Wild Years series, The White Rock Asylum for the Criminally Insane series, The Twisted Tales series, the Captured By a MerMan series, The Space Dock 13 series, The Kats of Planet Ptarmagin series, the stories about Miss Citten the Eel-Kat, or the stories about Etiole... ALL of those series were combined and consolidated into The Adventures of Quaraun the Insane Pink Necromancer series in 2014, so ALL the different series, are now under one series title.

List of the published titles still in print:

The Index of over three thousand stories in The Pink Necromancer series

What the series is about, for those new here:

The introduction to The Pink Necromancer Series. 

If you want some stories to get you started in The Pink Necromancer series, reading these first will give you a good introduction to the 3 main characters:

My Elves Are JellyFish...and I asked Google AI and ChatGPT 5.6 what they thought of this.

As requested, my daily writing prompt series is now available print paperback editions on Amazon.

There are 20 volumes of this writing prompt series currently planned and in varying stages of finishing, hopefully all 20 will be published by the end of 2026. I likely will do a 2nd series of writing prompt books in 2027.

The first of the Visual Novels/Video Games for The Adventures of Quaraun the Inane/The Pink Necromancer series is published and available on Itch.io, there are 3 more planned for release in 2026, 6 more planned for release in 2027, and the big 60-hour 80k word 150 page one (Quaraun Goes To the Fair) is planned for a 2028 release.

There is a Pink Necromancer card game and a Pink Necromancer board game, as well as a Pink Necromancer table top RPG supliment for Dungeons and Dragons, all in the works, and to be released over the next couple of years as well.

Health update: August 4, 2026 - in recovery for 6 months+ (at least until mid-January 2027...all book and video game releases are pushed back at least 6 months) see video below for why...
@eelkat

health update #maine #disabilityawareness #wheelchairlife #wheelchairvlogger #multiplesclerosis

♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author
@eelkat Health update: #chickenpox #bellspalsy #RamsayHuntsyndrome #paralysis #recovery ♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author
@eelkat

I seem to have had another stroke (during the night while I was asleep?) #stroke #paralysis

♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author

Update Sept 3, 2026:

I am able to get around enough to take Koko to dog park... today is 29 days since getting out of hospital. My diet is still mostly liquid, but im eating some solid food again, but its like rice or soft mushy baby food type stuff because I still can not chew yet, though I can swallow again. My jaw is still not functioning good so im having trouble talking still. So there's been slight improvement to my mouth, throat, and jaw, but, zero improvement to my eye, which is a major concern, be Im almost fully blind right now. im legally blind since birth in my left eye, so I have no ability to fall back on using my left eye. My right eye is the one injured and my vision in it is "40% decreased" according to my doctor, but it wasn't good vision to begin with, and right now my right eye is not much different from my legally blind left eye. Which I why I have to have someone drive my car for me instead of me driving my car myself right now, which is very frustrating, because, being a female, I had to fight for over twenty years to be allowed to drive. I started sneaking out at age 31 and dressing as a man to go to Old Orchard Beach high school to get a ged, because us females are not allowed to go to school. And i was 37 years old when snuck out to the DMV and got a driver's permit and started going to college. I was 42 and 8 months pregnant when my family found out I was going to college and thats when I was punished by the backhoe driving over my house and my spine broken with a golf club and my baby born right then and killed with same golf club. So it's very frustrating now, so soon after finally being able to drive , to now not be able to drive because of an eye injury, especially after 14 years of being paralyzed from the golf club and not being allowed to have a wheelchair, again, because i am female and we females are simply not allowed to do anything. I hate the culture I was born into. I wish I had the freedom to go to school and drive a car the way American women do. I wish having my spine broken with a golf club and my baby killed with a golf club and a backhoe driven over my house was not how men in my family punishment women in my family for learning to read and write. Its so frustrating not being able to to drive again, so soon after 14 years being paralyzed, and being paralyzed by the golf club was the punishment for getting a driver's license back in 2013 after 30 years of men not letting me have one. I hate my family's culture and how they treat us women.

I get so sick of Americans telling me how they wish they could be a Gypsy… they are either misogynist woman hating pigs, or delusional idiots who haven't got a clue how shittily we Gypsy women are treated by Gypsy men, because no one in their righ mind who knows anything about Gypsy culture would ever want to be part of it. I hate that I was born a Gypsy. 

update sept 7, 2026

"You would not make a good teacher"... what does that mean, and why are there so many people on Railroad Ave and Western Ave and Cutts St why walk up to me and say that to me?

I find it very confusing. I have low functioning Autism (the Rain Man type) and so i have very little understanding of words beyond the basic ones, and i never went to to school, so I never learned maths or sciences, and I only had remedial classes at Southern Maine Community College, because I did not have an education to enroll with regular, I was there taking every reading and writing class they had to learn how to read and write, and also took speaking classes to learn how to talk (i spoke Shetland Scottish language because that was language my grandmother spoke but she died when I was 8 so I only knew that language to speak and write, and I was 37 when I went to college and 42 when I learned English speaking and I still cant speak English good yet), all the other classes I took were art painting and cooking.

So the phrase "You would not make a good teacher" makes no sense to me because it seems to imply that I am trying to be a teacher, but I don't have anything close to the education ti be a teacher, and im not trying to be a teacher. So I don't know why people keep saying this phrase to me and I assume it must have some sort of a slang meaning, but I can't figure out what it could be of why do these people keep saying it to me.

see video below for more information: 


@eelkat "You would not make a good teacher"... what does that mean, and why are there so many people on Railroad Ave and Western Ave and Cutts St why walk up to me and say that to me? I find it very confusing. I have low functioning Autism (the Rain Man type) and so i have very little understanding of words beyond the basic ones, and i never went to to school, so I never learned maths or sciences, and I only had remedial classes at Southern Maine Community College, because I did not have an education to enroll with regular, I was there taking every reading and writing class they had to learn how to read and write, and also took speaking classes to learn how to talk (i spoke Shetland Scottish language because that was language my grandmother spoke but she died when I was 8 so I only knew that language to speak and write, and I was 37 when I went to college and 42 when I learned English speaking and I still cant speak English good yet), all the other classes I took were art painting and cooking. So the phrase "You would not make a good teacher" makes no sense to me because it seems to imply that I am trying to be a teacher, but I don't have anything close to the education ti be a teacher, and im not trying to be a teacher. So I don't know why people keep saying this phrase to me and I assume it must have some sort of a slang meaning, but I can't figure out what it could be of why do these people keep saying it to me. #mainelife #biddefordmaine #maine #disabilitytiktok #Biddeford ♬ original sound Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author

update Sept 15, 2026:

I have some slight movement in some my fingers again again after over a decade being paralyzed

you remember how I used to be a professional doll making, pattern designer, and embroiderer, back before I became paralized and before my son was murdered and being the backhoe drove over my house?

all my equipment, sewing machines, ect were all destroyed by the backhoe driving over my house, and I have been quardepelegic for over a decade because of it so could not use my hands to sew or draw or embroider, and so only continued to do my writing of novels since then because I could do that with dragon dictation software,

well, since 2016, I been playing Witcher 3 and don't starve video games on twitch livestream, one hand two fingers, as part of my therapy to regain nerve and muscle use of my fingers, and now after 10 years of that, I have somewhat more movement in my fingers and im thinking maybe I can try to do embroidery and doll making again, but not sure, anyways, now im rebuying all of my sewing and embroidery equipment that the backhoe destroyed when it drove over my house, and hopefully I can use my hand enough to embroider again.

waiting for stuff to arrive in mail, so soon I should find out if ten years of twitch gaming has given me enough muscle strength to use my fingers to embroider again.

update to the previous video, answering viewer question about lack of hospital vs broken spine

Wheelchair Fundraiser... I need to upgrade to a power wheelchair, the manual one just isn't enough anymore. But the power wheelchair is $25k. Yes, twenty five thousand dollars. Wtf? I can get a car for a quarter that price, why are wheelchairs so damned expensive? That's more money then I make in five years, so I need to start a fundraiser for it.

What comes first? Beta/alpha reading or editing? 

[quote author=Rae Scott link=topic=180210.msg2538353#msg2538353 date=1393883929]

What comes first? Beta/alpha reading or editing? 

[/quote]

I think everyone has their own system. I've heard some do beta first and others do editing first and others doing multiples back and forth (which is what I do.)

I've got 3 betas who are my standard go-tos. They get it before any editing, so what they are reading is the rough draft just as it popped out of my head.

My method is somewhat different than what I've heard others say they do, as well. See, I absolutely refuse to use "email betas". All of my betas are people loyal to me and I hand them print outs. I have a beta reader read it before it gets edited and ask them to write right on the print out, point by point EVERY thought and impression they had as they were reading it. (Note, I'm not asking them to edit or look for errors.) The print out I give them has 1.5inch margins and double spaced lines, so there's a lot of white space for them to write on.

The reason I do it this way, is because, while they are reading the story, they are able to write their first impressions right on the page, while they are reading. I find the feedback is far better this way. Email betas, will read the story, set it aside, then write up their comments hours or even days after reading. There is a big difference between comments written on the page as they read it, and comments written in an email a couple of days later.

I had one story I did this with and the first thing my beta reader had said was "Boy do you love your pronouns". I asked her what she meant by this and she told me that on page 1 all the characters were named, but that for the entire 30 pages afterwards not a single name appeared in the story, it was all "he" or "she" from page 2 onwards. I had no idea that I had done this, and after she told me this, I looked at my other stories and realized this was a huge problem from me - I did it A LOT.

Thing is, the email betas did not mention the pronoun issue. Only the paper print out betas mentioned it. I went back and asked all my betas about the pronoun issue and every one of them said they had in fact noticed while reading, and had intended to comment on it, but that by the time they had gotten around to writing up their review, it just had slipped their mind they had forgotten about it. Oh well. No biggie...wait...what? No biggie? How is that no biggie? That's pretty huge biggie.

Well, I went back and changed this error in a lot of my stories, I fixed it by a system of 5s: name, pronoun, pronoun, pronoun, name; so that I never used a pronoun for a single character more than 3 times in a row.

I had about 30 betas I use in rotation and I sent them a bunch of the stories, to read. Same thing was happening over and over. Betas who wrote on the hard copy as they read it, picked up on tons of stuff, including the pronoun error, because they were writing their first impression comments as they were reading.  They wrote long rants about everything from typos and errors ("I love your story but you can't spell worth sh%@") to character inconsistencies ("You know she's a hard a$$ back in chapter 2, now she's being a wous, what's with the whimpy act all of a sudden, it's out of character for her?") to plot questions ("Why in the he11 did you have him do that? That makes no sense at all, shouldn't he have been doing this instead?")...they would write in the lines, around the edges, on the back of the page, and attached more sheets. Every thought that went through their head, ended up on the page.

On the other hand, my email betas would write 4 or 5 sentences that amounts to "You dude, this is great"...uhm, yeah, that's not helpful.

So, yeah, I have personally found that beta readers are going to be very helpful, but only if you hand them a print out copy and a red ink pen and tell them they have permission to massacre your work. And don't flip out on them, either or they won't tell you want they really think next time. During beta reading is the time to be brutal. The last thing you want is a beta reader who pats your shoulder and tells you it's great. You want a beta reader who tears your story apart word for word and rips your characters apart...that's the only way you'll ever find those errors and flaws so you can correct them.

If you don't have betas yet, make sure you find ones that know the difference between a beta reader and an editor though. That's the thing that always bugs me: that beta readers seem to THINK they are supposed to edit the story. No, no, no,no, no! Betas read the story and tell you first impressions as a reader. Okay, if the typos and spelling and grammar are a huge issue that prevent them from reading, sure, you want them to tell you about it, but it's NOT their job to do the editing for you!

It happens to me all the time, I'll hand them the story (always hard copy print outs now, I never work over email anymore, for the reasons stated earlier) and say, "Write down anything you think of as you are reading." And I'll get back an edited manuscript. I'll ask "Why'd you edit this?" They say "Well you told me to write down what I thought and I thought it needed editing, see, I said it needed editing right here, and I pointed out all the places that needed editing."

I mean, I don't mind that they do that, but it's not what I wanted them to do. Betas are supposed to let you know if your plot is plausible, you characters likeable/believable, did the story flow read smoothly or was it choppy and confusing? If it needs editing, yeah, fine, I expect them to say something like "Oh, by the way, this really needs editing, I saw a lot of errors", but it's not their job to sit there marking up every single error they found. Make sure they know that. 

I think some of the confusion is, that a lot of authors do expect betas to edit, and so a lot of betas end up assuming that they are just expected to edit as well as read. So, tell them up front, that you are not asking them to edit, you only want them to review the story/plot/flow/characters/etc.

I have 2 sets of beta readers that I use. The first are my 3 regulars who read everything I write. I turn them for all my work, because I know they'll tell me EXACTLY what they think. If they hate it, they'll tell me, and they'll tell me why they hate it, which characters sucked and why. These guys are brutal. It has to get past these guys before it'll go on to anything else (more betas, editors, etc.) I rely on these three guys to tell me EXACTLY what they think. If they don't like the story, a character in the story, a scene, a plot twist, whatever, they will tell me and they will tell me EXACTLY why they didn't like it. These guys are brutal. Brutal honesty is what I expect from a beta reader. 

Here's a point: are your readers going to be mostly men or mostly women? And are your main characters male or female? Pick your betas to match.

I chose 3 men in the 20s as my beta readers, because I write primarily male main characters, but I'm a woman. So one thing I look for is 'are my male characters actually acting like male characters?' 

My 3 betas a very different: one is a "super mega geek-geek" (D&D, video games, comic books, sci-fi, Whovian, Trekkie, science nut, walks around with physics books and books by Michio Kaku - you'd think he just walked out of Big Bang Theory) and he introduces himself to people "My name is ___, I'm a geek", one is a "super mega music geek" (band tees, stacks of CDs and vinyl, name a band, any band, any time, any genre - oldie, pop, 80s big hair, new metal, rap, German industrial, punk, visual kei, grindcore, indie,  you name it he knows it, can recite every song title off every album, tell you the history of each band member and probably has it on his iPod), and the other is "the health nut" (tracks everything he eats, is into weight lifting and bodybuilding, and hopes to one day look like The Rock.) .... the thing they all have in common: they read... a lot.

They read a lot of sci-fi and horror and I write sci-fi & horror. They are best friends and they get together pick a book, read it, than watch it's movie, and get into debates tearing the movie apart over all the reasons it WASN'T like it's book (this includes comic book movies too). There is nothing these guys love more than finding everything that is WRONG with a book.

If these guys do not like something in your book, they think nothing of getting up on their soap box and telling exactly what they think is wrong with it. They nit-pick every little detail, inside out and upside down. If you do not have a thick skin and a hard turtle shell, you'll never make it pass one of their reviews. You'll be hard pressed to get a 2 star review from one of these guys, and THAT is why I picked them as my primary betas. Because I know I can trust them to find all the flaws and tell me about them.

If my main character is acting like a sissy or a dweeb, that's exactly what they say to me "___ is such a dweeb, REAL men don't say things like ___". 

I had one character, whom they said "___ does not make a good hero, not with all those stupid silver spoons stuffed so far up his *ss." I was like, 'Silver spoon? What do you mean?' Next thing I know they were throwing out all the reasons, lots of them: "He's such a momma's boy!", "Yeah, and what does he do for a living?", "Always running to daddy for money", "A girl could kick his butt", "You wrote him like he was a girl!"...Well, I never saw these things at all, but once they pointed this stuff out, I was "OMG! They are right! How did I not notice this?"

and that's what a beta's job is, right there, the show the author,, hey you're perfect character, ain't so perfect and this is how we readers are seeing him.

I know to expect a very thorough review from these guys, when I ask "So what did you think?" and they answer with "It's stupid." Why is it stupid? "Oh, well, because...." This is what I look for in beta readers, some one who is not afraid to speak their mind and just tear my characters and the plot to shreds. 

Sure I want to be told "I liked this because....", but if I'm to make my story better, I need to be told "I hated this because..." It's the only way I'm going to improve my story. And that's why I like these 3 betas, because I can rely on them to tell it like it is and not just say what they think I'll want to hear.

I never have to worry about these 3 guys trying to edit my work. They couldn't care less if the grammar or spelling was wrong. They'll tell me "You can't spell worth sh*t, you know that right?" But that's the end of it, they don't try to correct my errors.

I run into the editing problem with my second group of beta readers.

My second group of betas changes all the time, because I will go to a local college and give an English professor a stack of drafts (1 copy each of 15 to 30 stories, depending on how many students in his/her class). The teacher uses the drafts as part of the Creative Writing program. The assignment is to write a review of the story in question. It is intended to promote critical thinking. The students are instructed to write on the printout, any thought that pops into their head as they read it. They are given 15 minutes to read and then 30 minutes to write a review of what they read. The teacher tells them to look at plot and character development and assess them.

At no point are they instructed to edit the draft, the goal is to write a review of the story itself. This assignment leads into a group discussion afterwards, where the students discuss character development and story plots. (I was once a student in this class, now I'm the author providing the stories for it)Students who wish to do so, read the story out loud, then read their review, and than talk about why they thought what they did and the rest of the class debates if they agree of disagree. (it's a 3 hour class).

Well, when I get my drafts back, I get them with the student reviews stapled to the draft, and the reviews vary from one lines "This is stupid" or "I don't get it" or "WOW! Amazing" or "Dude!" Others are long essays detailing absolutely every thought that went through their head. Most are just a single paragraph or two. 

However, frequently, these drafts come back edited! The mis-spelled words crossed out, grammar corrected and the grammar rule scrawled into the margin, etc. On these, the paper attached is NEVER a review of the story, plot or characters, but rather a detailed rant about miss-spellings, grammar, and typos, usually stating that they were [i]"unable to concentrate on the story or it's characters because of all the glaring errors that were jumping off the page at me and screaming in my face"[/i] (as one student put it.)

Or "How do you expect me to read this, I can't even tell what it says the spelling is so bad, are you sure a professional author wrote this?" Usually if the student edited the draft, they also wrote a rant about how angry they were over the fact that anyone existed who was so stupid they couldn't spell, and how do such stupid people make it in the world...  :o

I sit in on these classes from time to time. The teacher does not tell the students I am the author. Instead the teacher tells the students I am a Education Degree Student, sitting in on a class for a homework assignment, to observe his/her teaching methods. Because they have no clue I'm the one who wrote the stories, they just say the first thing that pops into their head, and for the students hung up on correcting/editing the drafts instead of doing the assignment they were asked to do, they are always justify their lack of doing the assignment, by claiming they were too "morally outraged" over the spelling errors to even consider what the story was saying.

I also noticed a trend: younger students (just out of high school) are less likely to notice the errors and attempt to edit, while the older students (non-traditional college 35+) are LESS likely to review the story and will almost always get hung up on trying to edit it. (This came from observations made in the classes I've sat in on.)

I found this to be very eye opening. Sure they did not do the asignment they were asked to do, but clearly they were deeply upset at being asked to read a rough draft that had not yet gone through the editing process. They are always very vocal in the reasons why they absolutely refused to do the assignment.

Sometimes they get so angry over it that I half expect them to make signs are start marching around the college screaming "No more bad spelling! Death to bad spellers!" Basically they felt offended, as though they were being forced to read something that was beneath them. I found this important, because, it mirrors what I see in book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. People expect to be given good quality work. They expect to be respected enough to not have to read crap. They expect a story to have been edited before they are asked to read it - EVEN if they know it is a first draft they are being asked to beta read!

It always amazes me when a BETA READER gets upset over reading an unedited first draft, because, betas typically read the story before it goes to the editor, BECAUSE the author will use the beta's comments to write up a second draft, one improving on plot errors and character 

Sometimes I wonder if I should have stuff edited before I hand it over to betas, but then I realise, I would lose a ton of valuable feedback if I edited before betaing. For example, I might be tempted to let editing slide, had it not been for the open display of vehement hatred for bad spelling, I have seen displayed by some students during those class discussions. I run my stories through 10 rounds of mass edits, as a result of seeing how much readers hate to read badly spelled drafts.

I think of my betas as being the reviews I'd get if my book went to print without them. So, while I don't discourage my betas from editing if they feel they must, I don't encourage it nor do I expect it either, because my editing process is an entirely different round from my betas reading process.I consider betas readers completely separate from editors, which results in my stories getting multiple rounds of eyeballs looking at them. I beta first and edit after because often my betas point out things about characters or plot, which I had not noticed and later during the editing process I end up making changes to the characters and/or plot as a result. 

I know some writers expect their betas to edit, and I know some betas think editing is part of the job, but me, all I ask of my betas is "Read it and tell me what you think." Surprisingly, the lack of editing, is often top priority on the opinions of many betas. This tells me something: When it comes to publishing a story you can have bad characters and many readers won't mind if it's a good story, or you can have a bad story so long as the characters are good, but bad editing is not going to fly. Readers can forgive bad characters or bad stories as being artistic license of the author, but they'll never forgive bad grammar and bad spelling. My betas taught me that.

A lot of authors hand their betas a questionnaire as well. I think it works better for email betas, than it does for hard copy betas though. I did a questionnaire thing a couple of times, but I found it less helpful. It resulted in mostly one line comments in answer to the questions, which was okay, but lacked any real useful deep thoughts. The "Tell me what you think about the characters and plot, make note of everything that popped into your head as you read it," seems to work better for me.

oh, and I will point out, obviously, if the stories can be read in 15 minutes of class session, they are typically only 3 to 10 pages long. So, I'm talking about short stories in my own use of betas, not novels, nor collections of short stories. I know there is a time issue for a lot of authors too, most seem to give betas a time period, something like "Get back to me in 2 to 4 weeks on this". It seems to be pretty standard to expect a beta reader to take 2 to 4 weeks to read, review, respond. Every time I see authors/betas saying it takes more than a week to beta, I ask myself "Don't they know this is a business? You can't run a business like that!" 

I don't know, I guess I'm one of those people who just expects people to get things done on time. I won't wait around for the laggers. If a beta reader hasn't gotten back to me in a day or 2, I'll not ask them to read again. But still I'm one of those people with a MySpace badge that reads "I read Harry Potter in 72 hours" (nobody uses MySpace anymore, but anybody remember those?) So even with novels, I don't see why there would be a 3 to 4 week time lapse between some betas getting the story and the author getting the response back, especially not with most novels only been half as long as Harry potter was. That seems like a wicked long time lapse to me. Perhaps I'm more of a curmudgeon then other authors, but I won't wait around 4 weeks for a beta reader to respond, and I'd certainly never deal with them again. Time is money, the clock is ticking, every second counts, and well, 4 weeks is long enough to be seen as a set-back in my eyes.

Of course I can understand, if the author has 4 weeks of other stuff to deal with and so gives the betas 4 weeks, yeah, that makes sense. But it seems like usually the time lapse is not the author giving the betas 4 weeks, but rather the betas giving the author the run around and taking 4 weeks for the author to drag a response out of the beta. I've seen blog posts where authors will mention having trouble trouble getting betas to respond, and how they have to keep asking and asking and asking before the beta FINALLY weeks later send a response, along with "Oh, life happened and I didn't have time to read it...." Those are the ones that get me. If life happened, well why didn't they tell the author "I'm sorry, something unexpected happened and it'll be a few weeks before I can read your book, you might want to have another beta take my place this time."

I suppose it could be augued "Well, they are volunteering their time, and they have a life and ..." Yeah, but...they DID volunteer their time, presumably because THEY HAVE FREE TIME TO WASTE, you know, nothing going on in their life to prevent them from reading your story the day they get it and responding withing 2 or 3 days, and if it takes them 4 weeks to find the time to read your draft, seriously, that doesn't sound like somebody who had enough free time on their schedule to volunteer their time. They really have no business telling you they have time to read your story if they don't have time to read it and spend 4 weeks pussyfooting around before they get back to you.  I mean, I look at this as, I'm running a business, and I have deadlines to meet, and to make me wait 4 weeks is well, the only word for it is inconsiderate.

If it takes them 4 weeks to read a story and respond, than there's something seriously wrong. I wouldn't trust somebody who lied to me, told me that free time to read and respond and took 4 weeks to get back to me. Once a liir always a liar I say. I don't like being lied to. If they tell me there's a problem, you know somebody's in the hospital or whatever, I'd be like "Okay, you take care of that, let me know when things are back on track." 

But than that brings be back to me 3 beta guys...see I pay them to read for me. I have found that volunteer betas, goof off and take long, long, long turnaround times, where as paid betas, it's bam, read, reviewed, and back in my hands in 3 days or less.

I don't pay the college students, because the teachers use this has an in class assignment so they are getting college credits for beta reading, but the 3 guys who are my regular betas, they do get paid. Payment varies and could be $10 per story, or a $10 SubWay gift card, or a gift card to BullMoose Music Store, or I take them to Pizza Hut for dinner, or an all you can eat buffet (and three 20-something guys can eat a lot)  or take them to a movie, whatever. Usually it amounts to about $10 in either cash or food or gift cards per guy for every time they beta read a story. Plus they get copies of the final print book as well. So I typically spend $30 per story, to have them read it. Most of the stories I write are 10 printed copy paper pages (25 - 35 published pages) so I pay my 3 regular betas at a rate of $1 per page (about $10 per story). At a story a week, 3 readers a story, that comes out to about $1500+/- a year to have my stories beta read.

I wonder...is it because my betas ARE NOT volunteering, is that the reason they are on the ball and respond to me in only a few hours/days, not weeks? The college students, they don't get credit if they turn the assignment in late, the 3 guys, they don't get a "free meal" if they put off responding. They have an incentive to get back to me quickly, because in essence they are getting paid on some level. So I wonder are betas be more professional and more timely in their responses when the author pays them?

I know a lot of authors don't pay their betas, but I have noticed that those who do, tend to say they get beta results from their betas, so it might be worth looking into paying your betas, if you have trouble getting them to respond in a timely manner.

[quote author=Rae Scott link=topic=180210.msg2538353#msg2538353 date=1393883929]

 The when its done being edited do yu edit it a second time? 

[/quote]


I will usually run each story through several. I never publish anything until it has gone through at least 5 edits. As many as 10 edits are not unusual for me. 

My process goes like this:

It gets beta read, than I rewrite it, than it gets edited via an GrammarChecher software program. Than it goes through yet another program. I have 7 different programs I use and they each find things the others missed.

After this it gets printed up and is given a manual red pen edit on hard copy.

At this point all of the edits were done by me, myself.

After this it is handed to my 3 betas again. They tell me if it's better or not.

Than it gets handed over to a third party editor, who does the actual final edit...which may or may not be the final edit. The last thing to happen is the whole thing gets run through a grammar checker software again.

[quote author=Rae Scott link=topic=180210.msg2538353#msg2538353 date=1393883929]

Also do any of you order print books and send them to friends when you first publish your work? I have thought of doing this for a couple friends who i will be having in the dedication of the book. (maybe 10 copies total?)

[/quote]


Yes.

Always.

Every book.

Every time.





While there are around 20k pages on this website, most of them are blocked from search engines, with only around 800 of them available for appearing in Google/Bing/etc search results. The remainder can only be accessed via the various links found throughout this site. This was done deliberately on my part, and I did it because the bulk of the pages on this website are chapters from 138 novels and 423 novellas, so only the first page of each novel and novella indexed by search engines, and the remainder are linked in order, one page at a time, via clicking "next page" at the end of each. So if you are looking for a specific page from a specific novel, Google can't help you.



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Wendy Christine Allen 🌸💖🦄 aka EelKat 🧿💛🔮👻
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Wheelchair Fundraiser

@eelkat

i just found out there is yet another bizarre rumour going around. where are these wild rumours coming from? who is starting them? and why?

♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author
@eelkat

since I've been flooded with hundreds of messages the past two weeks asking if I still own "the world's most haunted car", yes, and here it is, filmed today May 18, 2026… but my son Xavier is dead, i am crippled and given that people are AGAIN showing up calling my Dodge "haunted", calling my friend "an alien", calling me "transgender", and spreading wild defamation slander connecting me to Stephen King, I think I need to start taking down the contact information of every blogger, podcaster, youtuber, and social media account spreading these rumors, and sue every single one of them for CAUSING my car to be cut in half May 10, 2010, for CAUSING the backhoe that drove over my house August 8, 2013, for CAUSING my son's murder November 14, 2013, for CAUSING me to be crippled and in a wheelchair November 14, 2013, and for CONTINUING to CAUSE harassers to show up in person to harass me near daily, STILL now in 2026. EVERYONE telling you my car is haunted, telling you my friend is an alien, calling my car "the goldeneagle", calling my friend "Etiole", or trying to connect me or my car to Stephen King, is lying to you. They crippled me when I was 8 months pregnant, and a woman with a golf club, severed my spine and bashed my baby's head in, I spent 9 years relearning to walk, and the FBI is 13 years into the murder investigation and not yet identified the attacker who crippled me and killed my baby, both violently with a golf club and the FBI believes that it is friends and family of the woman who did it, are the ones who started and spread the rumors saying my car is haunted, saying I'm an alien abductee, saying all kinds of similar bs about aliens, ufos, ghosts, witchcraft, demons, and Stephen King connections, even though I don't believe in ghosts, aliens, ufos, demons, and had never heard of Stephen King before 30k of his fans showed up in my yard trying to find my car! FBI believes the backhoe driver and the murderer are the same person and it is a developer who wanted my land and so started the Stephen King, ghost, and alien rumors all in an attempt to drive me off my land, and when it didn't work they drove a backhoe over my house, and when that didn't work they crippled me and killed my son. Why are they doing this? How do I get them to stop?

♬ original sound - Wendy C Allen | 📚 Author






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Get an email whenever Wendy Christine Allen 🌸💖🦄 aka EelKat 🧿💛🔮👻 publishes on Medium.

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Do you know who drove this backhoe over my house at 146 Portland Avenue, Old Orchard Beach, Maine on August 8, 2013? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

My house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, July 4, 2013, photo taken because we had just finished building a baby room on the back. vs My house August 8, 2013, when the same group of people (yes group, the golf club woman was not alone when she attacked November 14, 2013, nor was she alone with her second attack July 2016.) who murdered my son on November 14, 2013 at Southern Maine Community College and crippled me July 26, 2016 at scarborough WalMart,... they arrived the first time with a backhoe on August 8, 2013, that they used to drive over my house, during a time of day that I normally was home asleep... I had to work a different shift at the Waffle Cone Pizza Food Truck at George's Parking Lot by Bill's Pizza at the OBB Peir, that day, otherwise, I too would be at the bottom of a landfill, along with my house and everything I owned that was also in the house. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and have been homeless for just under 14 years, homeless ever since....

... which means it is now only a few weeks from the 14th anniversary of my son's murder. I was 8 month pregnant November 14, 2013, and a student ay SMCC, and coming out of the Buglight Lighthouse art studio after art class, when a still unidentifiedwoman wielding a golf club attacked me, severed my spine, while I was 8 months pregnant, triggered early labour, then killed my son minutes after he was born.

While accusing me of being transgender, screaming "transvestite freak" and "look at that thing, that's Ken's son in a dress"... while I was 8 months pregnant.

eelkats_house_before_after.jpgMy house at 146 Portland Ave, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, July 4, 2013, photo taken because we had just finished building a baby room on the back. vs My house August 8, 2013, when the same group of people (yes group, the golf club woman was not alone when she attacked November 14, 2013, nor was she alone with her second attack July 2016.) who murdered my son and crippled me, arrived the first time with a backhoe that they used to drive over my house, during a time of day that I normally was home asleep... I had to work a different shift at the Waffle Cone Pizza Food Truck at George's Parking Lot by Bill's Pizza at the OBB Peir, that day, otherwise, I too would be at the bottom of a landfill, along with my house and everything I owned that was also in the house. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and have been homeless for just under 14 years, homeless ever since.

The backhoe driver returned November 14, 2013, armed with a golf club, used it to break my spine and smash my baby's brains out on the ground

On November 14, 2013, my son was murdered. I was 8 months pregnant, leaving my college classroom, and just getting into my car, when 3 strangers, a man and two women, armed with golf clubs leapt out from behind my car screaming "kill or be killed, kill the transvestite freaks, kill them all before they kill us! look at that thing! That is Ken's son, look at how it's dressed! kill the transvestite freaks! kill or be killed"... while the bald man and the red haired woman chanted this over and over, the blonde woman, lunged with the golf club.

She severed my spine, I am now a quadriplegic, and been paralyzed arms and legs, and in a wheelchair for 13 years now. She broke my hips, my knees, my legs, ruptured most of my discs, and shattered three of my vertebrae so bad that the shards of bone acted like glass and embedded themselves into my spinal column nerve bundle.

The attack also triggered labour.

My son was born in that parking lot, and he lived only a couple of minutes, before the deranged blonde woman, beat his head in and smashed his brains out, with the same golfclub she had just used to sever my spine and leave me crippled for the rest of my life.

Realizing that I was not transgender, and they'd just murdered a baby, the man grabbed the 2 women and forcibly dragged them away to a 4 door white pickup truck, and they left me there to die.

The FBI told me later, that a few weeks before this attack, and transwoman, had murdered a cis woman, in a parking lot, abou 20 miles away from where I was attacked. The FBI, believes that my attackers, had somehow found out I wrote transgender fiction, connecting my real name to my penname, (my father's name is in fact "Ken", and I do have a brother) and believed that I wrote transgender fiction, because I was myself transgender, even though I'm not transgender. The FBI, believes the attackers, thought I was my brother, pretending to be a woman.

The FBI investigation, into my son's murder, has dragged on for 13 years, and still now in 2026, continues on, with the FBI, still not having yet identified my attackers, and only guessing at what their motive was.

Thus we come to 2014, and the full swing change of the series I write. WHY my series, went from just a transman main character living life, to the full blown Mpreg genre series that it now is today.

Before the attack, I had a chance of having a baby. I don't know. And because I'm in America, I'm too old to adopt. You have to be under 45 years old to adopt a baby. That is the law in America. I was informed this, when we tried to adopt, now that my injuries leave me unable to get pregnant a 9th time.

Thus began my obsessively writing, my transman main character, pregnant. Always pregnant now. Every time. Every story. Stories that now fully focus on pregnancy, labour, miscarriages, babies dying, babies living, raising babies... the whole series, since 2014 has devolved into an outright baby obsession.

Meanwhile, reborn baby dolls were suggested to me by my therapist, and have also become a deeply obsessive part of my life. Because 13 years ago my son was murdered minutes after he was born, because a transphobic bigot mistook me for being transgender, I'm STILL in a wheelchair, struggling to relearn to use my arms and legs, now 13 years later, and I'm still DAILY dealing with police officers and FBI agents who while they are trying to find my son's killer, they are also daily reminding me... oh, yeah, my son was murdered, literally ripped out of my belly, by a transphobe. Who still has not been located and walks free to kill again.

The golfclub woman as she looked during the golf club attack at Southern Maine community college November 14, 2013. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026.

Clairescreenshot.pngIf you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

The golfclub woman as she looked during the shopping cart attack at Scarborough WalMart July 26, 2016. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026.

zzzz999ClaireRed2016-screenshotIf you have any information about the identity of this child murderer, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

The 2nd woman as she looked at both attacks, her hair goes all the way down to her knees. She is about 20 to 30 years older then me and would be around 75 to 85 years old now in 2026.

Kendrascreenshot.pngIf you have any information about the identity of this child murderer's accomplice, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322

Do you know who these two woman who crippled me and murdered my baby, at Southern Maine Community College at 10PM on November 14, 2013, are, and what their connection to the backhoe that drove over my house is? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

I am a legally blind quadriplegic, and low verbal, I have also published 138 novels in the last 48 years. It's not as impossible as people think. The problem being blind and quadriplegic, medically have different meanings then how those two words are used medically.

Fewer than 3% of all blind people see nothing. While 97% people who are classified as fully blind are able to see up to two feet in front of them. Legally blind means I can see more then two feet in front of me but not far enough to see twenty feet in front of me. In my case I can see about eight feet.

Quadriplegic, has varying levels, it means having a damaged nerve bundle in the spinal column causing limited mobility of all 4 limbs, (in my case this was done by a women wielding a golf club, who also beat my 8 month infant's head to pulp on the parking lot tarmak, at the same time she severed my spine with the same golf club; both on November 14, 2013; the FBI investigation into my son's murder and my being crippled has gone on now for 13 years, a few weeks away from 14 years now, and the FBI has still not identified the killer or her motive). Contrary to popular misconception, quadriplegic does NOT mean ZERO movement, it means means limited movement, specifically in means unable to lift arms over head, unable to grip fingers around objects to pick them up, and unable to stand for more then 5 minutes to a time. Because there are so many thousands of nerves in each limb it is actually very rare for there to be 100% no movement, but how much, and to what extent varies by patent depending upon the specific point of injury to the spinal column.

Meaning typing is still possible for over 60% of all quadriplegics.

In my case, it was the lower spine that was severed, cutting off completly my ability to move my right leg, leaving limited feeling in my left leg, and an ability to stand but not walk, with crutches, for the first 9 years. I regained enough nerve growth in my legs by the 9th year to be able to take ten or twelve steps allowing me to get out of bed for the first time since the golf club attack; This in turn lead to me being able to start using a wheelchair, as I was able to sit upright for the first time as well.

Because the shattered vertebrae bone fragments are broken off completly and embedded into the nerve bundle just above my tailbone, doctors were saying I would never walk again, but now at 13 years, I am able to push mu wheelchair like a walker, a distance of almost a thousand steps a day. Though doctors are still doubtful I will ever walk "normally" again, I have proven them wrong, when their said 13 years ago, that I would never walk again at all.

But because of the placement of the damage to my spine, regaining hand use, was always thought possible, it was just a matter of waiting long enough for nerve regrowth, along side daily finger exercises. I was able to continue writing, after becoming quadriplegic, because I still have use of my right thumb, and 2 fore figures of my right hand. And can type 90 words per minute with those 3 fingers.

I however have no wrist strength, elbow strength, or shoulder strength, so I am not able to form a fist, or lift objects, or brush my hair, or my teeth, all thing I have to have my caretaker do. But, those things are not needed for typing. Unfortunately, my pinky and ring fingers are "nerve dead" and drag over the keyboard, and cause horrific spelling errors and typos, which are incredibly frustrating to deal with.

Unfortunately trying to edit errors myself, just makes the errors worse, because those same two fingers drag over the keyboard yet again. Prior to the golf club attack, I rarely had spelling errors; now I got more spelling errors then someone is learning English as second language. Editing is a challenge, that I've had to accept, I simply can not do myself, and I have to hire several editors to help with that.

Low verbal means sounds can still be made, sounds that software programs like Dragon can be trained to recognize and translate, and type into full words. More then half my novels were typed with this method.

I still have a long ways to go before I am anything close to being able to do the things I could do before the golf club woman beat my baby's brains out and shattered my spine. And you know what's more frustrating then how slow mu medical progression has been? The fact that it's been 13 years and the police and FBI are still coming up at dead ends as to who the woman who murdered my baby was, or why she even did it.

My son's 14th birthday is only a few weeks away, but he didn't even get to live long enough to celebrate his 1st birthday, I don't even know why. And I can't wait to regain my ability to walk again, because regaining my ability to walk, means gaining the ability to go outside and start looking for my son's murderer myself instead of sitting at home trapped in a wheelchair waiting for the police and FBI to to find her. So, writing isn't a big priority for me anymore. I only write now, as a way to exercise my hands, in between relearning to walk.

Never let a disability stop you. Plenty of writers, artists, athletes, do not let either blindness, speech impediments, or limited mobility hold then back from perusing their careers.

Do you know who these two woman who crippled me and murdered my baby, at Southern Maine Community College at 10PM on November 14, 2013, are, and what their connection to the backhoe that drove over my house is? If you have any information, please give it to FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207–774–9322 of the Portland, Maine FBI office.

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