This is a gem of a compact, visceral film noir released in 1948. Here you see the three leads involved in their prickly romance triangle: Claire Trevor, Dennis O'Keefe, and Marsha Hunt. O'Keefe plays a gangster making a prison break, aided by his gun moll girlfriend Claire Trevor who also provides some narration. They end up involving social worker Marsha Hunt who has also fallen in love with O'Keefe. Meantime mobster chief Raymond Burr (he's always solid for a demented villain) is the pyro sadist who O'Keefe took the rap for (the crime is never specified), but Burr wants to welsh on his paying off O'Keefee by having him killed. So, our three fugitives take it on the lam, fleeing from the police dragnet and Burr's henchmen. At one point, they're tearing off in a Willy's Overlander station wagon. My parents had one of the later models. O'Keefe and Trevor plan to make it to Frisco and board a freighter bound for Panama and their new life. I liked the interplay between the two female leads. Trevor is always first rate as the tough but still tender femme fatale. Marsha Hunt is a new actress to me. Wikipedia indicates she was blackballed by the 1950s Hollywood witch hunts. The excellent actor O'Keefe, a heavy smoker, died of cancer at age 60. Anthony Mann directed Raw Deal with his usual gritty style. Imbd.com gives Raw Deal a 7.4/10 rating, but I'd go higher with 8.0.

Raw Deal is a public domain flick. I saw a decent copy streamed from YouTube at this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxyrRIHqYGY

My Latest Read Western: Frank Gruber's The Marshal

Every once in a while, I like to jump into reading a Western. It's a genre that's unfairly dismissed today by many readers, but I remain a fan over the decades, and my interest hasn't flagged any that I can tell. This slim paperback cost originally 35 cents, but I bought it from a secondhand bookstore for a mere 15 cents. How could I go wrong at that price? So, I popped like a big spender and took The Marshal home with me. Frank Gruber is an old pulp writer (1904-69). He wrote for TV and the movies, so he enjoyed a successful and varied career as an author. This story concerns a former Union officer named Thaddeus "Tad" Shad who comes to a new railroad town in Kansas. He's sort of pushed into becoming the ad hoc marshal, and is good at his job. His stern law enforcement upsets the town merchants who don't want to keep the cowboys from spending their money while having a "little fun." Like shooting up the town. Good stuff here. Great final scene, too. If you see any of Gruber's cowboy fiction, grab it. You won't be disappointed. I wasn't.

Today I'm the Guest Blogger at Elizabeth White's Book Reviews Blog

Hey guys, my Monday blog appears today as a guest post on Elizabeth White's Book Reviews Blog. "A Short Anatomy of My New Short Story Collection by Ed Lynskey" is my guest blog's title. My short story collection is Smoking on Mount Rushmore: 16 Selected & New Short Stories. Here's the link to Elizabeth's blog: http://bit.ly/WQOYfJ.

Pop on by and leave a comment, if you like. Thanks for your interest!

Breaking Out Of My 2013 Reading Slump!

Hurray! I finished reading my first novel for pleasure in 2013. Break open the bubbly.

I haven't read any novels for the fun of it since the end of last year. That's a slump for me. The primary reason isn't for the lack of motivation, but rather the lack of time. I've been revising and writing my own novels. Mostly revising new projects, really. Plus, I review a lot of books professionally.

I had finally arrived at a good pausing point, so I decided to finish reading a paperback that had been sitting on my nightstand all winter. The bookmark was tucked in at about page 10, so I'd edged into the plot. That was a good start, anyway.

Many writers don't read other works of fiction while they're in-progress with their own titles. Doing so messes with their minds, or mojos, or something. I'm a lot that way, too, particularly if I'm in the white heat of writing my first draft to a new crime novel. Newspaper and nonfiction reading is fine, but fiction isn't a good idea. At least, I've found that to be true at this point in my writing career.

Reading is a funny thing. Sometimes you burn out on it. So, you wait and somehow the old itch returns, and you're off again, digging it. Anyway, I've got a pile of books waiting for me to jump into, so I'll have to select which title goes to the top of Mount To-Be-Read. Maybe I'll get to it sooner although I don't see another lull coming any time soon. Lots of writing lies ahead of me. It gets the first priority.

This is the book I used to break out of my 2013 reading slump:

What I'm Reading For Fun This Weekend

After a long hiatus, I finally got a break in the action to sit down and read a novel just for the fun of it. And I picked a real winner, I can tell you. The Girl with the Long Green Heart by Lawrence Block is my choice to get the reading-for-fun ball rolling again. Mr. Block writes a seamless type of prose that other authors must envy. This edition from Hard Case Crime is a reprint of the original title with a 1965 copyright date. The story is about a pair of grifters working a real estate scam on a wealthy businessman. The "girl" (remember this is in 1965) is the businessman's secretary who is working on the inside track for the con men. The older grafter is narrating the tale. Fresh out of pulling a hard stretch at San Quentin, so he's got plenty of incentive not to get caught again. I'm about two-thirds finished. We'll see how it all plays out.

NOTE:
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Do Fewer Men Read Novels Than Women Do?

The short answer seems to be yes. I don't know where I first heard the point being made. However, I can see this trend reflected at my Goodreads dashboard where my novels and short story collections are flagged as read by more female than male readers.

"We see it every time in our store," said Carla Cohen, the owner of the Politics & Prose Bookstore located in Washington, D.C. in an NPR article printed in 2007. "Women head straight for the fiction section and men head for nonfiction." I live just outside of Washington, D.C.

While I was writing my early hardboiled P.I. Frank Johnson series titles, I also wrote stories for the ladies' confessionals, the TRUE magazine line from Dorchester Media before they were sold. I learned the hard way through trial and error the sort of stories their editors liked and bought for their predominantly female reading audience. I also began a small town cozy mystery series featuring a pair of senior sleuths (the first title is Quiet Anchorage).

My point is I felt compelled to expand my fiction writing to include a subgenre for a largely female readership. I have enjoyed my time at writing both the soft-boiled and hard-boiled crime fiction. The range of my fiction writing can be found in the short stories I included in my latest collection Smoking on Mount Rushmore.
   
Here's the link to the NPR article cited in this blog post: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14175229

Does Taking Down Fences Still Make Good Neighbors?

The well-known Robert Frost poem says good fences make good neighbors. This week I've been tearing down the old wood rail fence separating my lot from my next-door neighbor's property. The fence was part of the house and yard we bought more years ago than I care to remember. At the time, I told my neighbor, a likeable enough chap, my intention was to tear the fence down. He seemed noncommittal, maybe, in part, because he didn't want to have any part of the teardown effort. LOL. But then I had second thoughts since the fence didn't look all that bad, and after a few simple fix-its, the fence held its curb appeal. The past two snowy winters, however, have done their worst damage to the fence. The posts have rotted off at the ground. The rails have broken up. I haven't been able to rescue the fence. So, this spring I decided to pull the plug on what had become a definite eyesore. After getting it cleared away, the property line now has a bare look. As for my neighbor, I haven't seen him around to chat with. He's recently retired and looks to be doing upgrades to his residence, usually a sure sign it will be going on the real estate market soon. At any rate, I don't believe he'll be anything but relieved the fence between us for so many years has been finally retired, and it's one less headache for me.

Film Noir Review: PRIVATE HELL 36 Starring Ida Lupino

Lately, I've enjoyed watching classic film noirs. Most are pretty short and after writing and reading all day, I just need a simple way to chill out. Film noirs fit the bill just fine. I'll probably watch fewer of them once baseball season cranks up. Some film noirs are outright turkeys. But then others are real gems. Such is the case for this title.

This is a 1954 movie produced and co-scripted by Collier Young and his then-wife Ida Lupino. They also did The Hitch-Hiker, one of my favorites of the genre. Ida also stars in Private Hell 36 along with her next husband Howard Duff who plays the square-jawed, clean cop. The slick-talking dirty cop is played with lots of relish by Steve Cochran, one of the great villain actors. Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dirty Harry) directed it, and I caught the name David Peckinpah as the dialogue director during the opening credits, and, yes, that's the later famous director Sam (Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Pat Garret & Billy the Kid). Also, be sure to look sharp at the film's beginning and don't miss the uncredited Richard Deacon (the bald-headed dude Mel Cooley on TV's sitcom, The Dick Van Dyke Show). Deacon is the pharmacist who gets robbed by a pair of junkies. Anyway, Duff and Cochran play a pair of L.A. cops investigating a 300 grand robbery, and face a moral dilemma when they recpver the stolen money. The film is part police procedural, and "Dragnet" even gets a sly mention. But the real treat is watching Cochran and Ida play off each other as the greedy lovers who want the bigger and brighter things in life. There's even the law-and-order Dragnet-like monologue at the film's start and end. I got a kick out of watching Private Hell 32. IMDb.com rates it 6.7/10.0. No way by me, so I'll go with a solid 7.5.

It's a public domain film you can watch on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2UgoWrxS8U

My latest crime novel Blood Diamonds is now available for order as a trade paperback. Amazon as well as Barnes & Noble has it up on their U.S. sites. I don't see it at Canada or Europe yet although I do see my penultimate crime noir Ask the Dice is both places for sale as a trade paperback. So it will be coming very soon.

Blood Diamonds is about a diamond heist that has interesting aspects to it since we're reading noir here. Ask the Dice is about a hit man trying to retire from the biz when he's framed for a murder. Both suburban noirs make for a nice pairing from the good folks at Crossroad Press.
Thanks for your patience and interest!

What Percentage of Your Book Purchases Are Impulse Buys?

I read a study that claims 40% of purchases made by consumers fall in the impulse buy category. In other words, they see a product for sale and, on the spot, make the snap decision to pop for it. That figure seems a little high to me. I don't see that many things flying off store shelves and landing in buyers' shopping carts or baskets. Speaking for myself, I don't think I make that many type of purchases. Of course, I might be wrong on both counts. I do like bright, shiny new things as much as the next shopper does. Which brings me to the topic of book purchases considered in this blog post.

As a fiction author peddling his wares (13 books and counting), I'd love nothing more than to go with the 40% impulse buys statistic. But I have to wonder if books don't fall in a different categoy. I buy my books as I get to reading them, sort of a pay-as-you-go approach. A bunch of unread ebooks wait on my Kindle for me. If I know a new book has hit the streets that I really want to read, then I'll go ahead and pop for it. But that isn't really an impulse buy where I see any book, and I want it right then. In other words, I make an unplanned buy.

Publishers Weekly published an article a while back focusing on the impulse book purchaser. The point made said that impulse buys done in the brick-and-mortar bookstores are higher than the impulse buys made online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Of course, the numerous freebie book gaveaways done online everyday might skew that figure.

Here's the link to the interesting PW article: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/47383-acting-on-impulse.html

My Ten Favorite Film Musical Scores

I thought it'd be fun today to do something a little different on my blog. I used to compile lots of lists blogs, but then I got away from doing them. Anyway, I listed ten of my favorite musical scores from the films I've watched. I also included the composer with each movie and any comments. Enjoy.

1. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966) Ennio Morricone. I never tire of listening to this one. The spaghetti Westerns are good, too.

2. Psycho (1960) Bernard Herrmann. Yeah, I hear it whenever I'm using a motel shower.

3. Jaws (1975) John Williams. It made beach-going a different experience afterwards.

4. The Pink Panther (1963) Henry Mancini. I never laughed any harder at the movies.

5. The Godfather (1972) Nino Rota. Even if parodied over and over, the film remains watchable.

6. Rocky (1976) Bill Conti. Catchy.

7. Goldfinger (1964) John Barry. Shirley Bassey sang her classic James Bond hit for the 2013 Academy Awards. 

8. The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) Malcolm Arnold. Whistle along with it.

9. Gone With The Wind (1939) Max Steiner. Remember the intermission halfway through its showing at the cinema?

10. Love Story (1970) Francis Lai. Syrupy but affecting.

What's This New App Called SnapChat?

Their mascot is called Ghostface Chillah, a name taken from the rapper Ghostface Killah. Well, you've lost me right there. Anyway, I was curious about SnapChat after I heard a news report about teenagers leaving Facebook and using the newer apps such as SnapChat. I wondered if it might have some potential for promoting books to readers and fans, so I decided to investigate a little. The app is used to send pictures and videos to recipients with the key feature being the pictures and videos self-destruct after a few seconds. The data is impermanent since it also disappears from the SnapChat servers. I haven't used the app, so all of my reporting is based on what I've read. There has been a disturbing problem with sexting. I could see that happening easily enough. You can also add text and drawings to the pictures before sending them. Naturally this leads to a lot of goofy stuff going out, but it doesn't exist for long, so there's no fear of discovery by adults. I can see the cool factor of SnapChat. At any rate, I couldn't think of any useful way to promote books by using SnapChat. But it's still pretty new so who knows where the app might go? Time will tell.

What Are Your Biggest Twitter User Peeves?

Recently I saw an online poll asking what twitter users viewed as their biggest peeves. So, I decided I'd use my blog to list a few of the most common twitter user peeves and give my experiences with them.

1. Spammers. I mostly get these in the direct messages (DMs are twitter's version of email).

2. Hacked twitter accounts. I'll get a DM asking me if I've seen this picture of me. The link is to a bug that hijacks your account and generates tweets advertising their product or service. Your followers get annoyed real fast and unfollow you. Lots of them unfollow. Yeah, been there, done that. Change your password often.

3. Auto DMs when you follow somebody new. They are so obvious, and any personal touch in the response is lost.

4. Hashtags (#). I used to include them more in my tweets but I've gotten away from the practice. I've read they're annoying to some users.

5.  Twitter rule about following too many people vs. the number of followers. I've never experienced twitter shutting me down from adding new followers. I keep a close eye on the balance so I don't get in that position.

6. Celebs with millions of followers. I'm not bothered. I don't follow any celebs except for authors. Well, I did follow back Seinfeld TV Reruns because I'm a big fan.

7. #FollowFridays. A method used to gain more followers. #FFs can be fun, but overuse makes them less so. I try to thank anybody who includes me, and, on occasion, will do them.

8. No profile picture, just the grayed out silhouette. I used to put my latest book cover art there, but I think folks want to see an actual human face, so I uploaded my portrait instead. A couple of my tweeps said they liked the move.

Film Noir Review: Scarlet Street Starring Edward G. Robinson

Scarlett Street from 1945 is considered one of the classic film noirs. The Czar of Noir Eddie Muller lists it in his top 25 film noir titles. I was a little less impressed as I liked The Woman in the Window, also featuring the same three leads: Edward G. Robinson, Dan Duryea, and the lovely Joan Bennett. Both films were directed by Fritz Lang. (My review of The Woman in the Window appears in an earlier blog.) Scarlett Street runs a little longer at 101 minutes, and that might be the problem. There is more time to exchange dialogue, and it slows down the pace. The final 20 minutes are prime noir, however. So, bear with the movie for big pay-off. Robinson plays a hen-pecked, middle-aged cashier who washes the dinner dishes while his harridan wife listens to the radio dramas downstairs with the neighbor lady. He paints on the side as a passionate hobby. He's more talented than he gives himself credit for. Joan Bennett comes into his life, and Dan Duryea, her actual boyfriend, helps her cook up a grift to fleece poor, old Robinson (through his position as a cashier) who thinks he's madly in love with the much younger lady. Middle-aged men, I suppose, indulge in those fantasies. The photography of post-war New York City is great. Edward G. Robinson is superb, again. I just like the edgier The Woman in the Window a bit more. However, the pair of films are well worth seeing one  after the other. I hope neither picture ever goes out of print.

Another Sign of Spring: the Farmer's Market Opens

The Farmer's Market is set to open for 2013 during the first week in May. The salads we prepare and eat taste so much better from the fresh produce we buy at our market. Of course the lettuces growing in the cooler temperatures will be the one of the first veggies available for sale. You get to know the vendors firsthand, and they sure do remember you, the paying customer, as well. I believe the prices are little steeper than what you'd pay for the same items at the neighborhood grocery stores. So, you might want to check out your nearest one. Our different Farmer's Markets' locations are given online. Writers are told to write about what they know, but I never figured I'd ever use the Farmer's Market as a setting in one of my novels. But when I wrote my crime novel Blood Diamonds, I used a Farmer's Market largely inspired by the one we patronize for the setting to a pivotal scene (where boy meets girl). So, my going to the Farmer's Market provides more than just its good-tasting produce. It's now just a matter of waiting until the time rolls around again.

Are You Also a Social Media (De)Lurker?

Are you a lurker? My hand goes up. We're not alone if yours did, too. A 2011 study shows 90% of individuals on the different social media platforms don't participate directly in the discouse held there, but are content to "lurk" and read the content created. 9% of that 10% only occasionally contribute (that is they "delurk") while the hardcore 1% carry most of the load (see the study at: http://blog.case.org/2011/03/social-media-lurkers.html). That's a surprisingly large percentage (99%) to me. I still subscribe to several online mystery fiction groups, including DorothyL. I know I don't contribute nearly as much as I once did. My blog (like my writing here now), twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Goodreads have all stolen away my time spent on the mystery fiction messageboards. On the other hand, I tweet quite often, and my blog posts usually appear daily. It boils down to the amount of time I budget for my online presence versus my freelance and fiction writing time. I've met and got to know many nice people through social media and gained some loyal readers of my novels, so it's been worth it if considered in that respect.

Video/Audio Clips of My Favorite Crime Fiction Authors

I thought it would be fun to see if I could dig up any video/audio clips of my favorite crime fiction authors.

First up is the too short clip of Charles Willeford playing the barkeep in the Roger Corman movie Thunder and Lightning about moonshine runners operating down in Florida. It also starred Kate Jackson on Charlie Angels fame. Mr. Willeford has the gravely voice I expected him to use. Here's the YouTube link: http://is.gd/GuJGf5

Second, we'll check the Southern gothic (he's one of my writing heroes even if he didn't write crime fiction) novelist Harry Crews. This is part 1 of his documentary ""Harry Crews: Guilty As Charged." Here's the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p80520bcmKQ

Third, we'll see if David Goodis has anything available. Film Director Edward Holub's short documentary (~18 minutes long), "Retracing the Footsteps of Davis Goodis, America's Great Lost Noir Writer," is quite excellent. It's shot in Philadelphia while Holub narrates. See this link if you're a Goodis fan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGT1naim_TM

Fourth, Raymond Chandler was interviewed by Ian Fleming on BBC in 1958. Chandler sounds cranky like I figured he would be. You can hear the interview at this YouTube (the actual interview starts at 5:45 minutes in) link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj6cc0T1z7I

I hope you found something to enjoy there.

My Latest Crime Novel BLOOD DIAMONDS Should Be Out In Paperback Soon

Last night I looked at the front cover proofs to the paperback version of my latest crime novel Blood Diamonds. So, the paperback is on the way for you who asked me about it. I'll keep you posted from my blog right here.

Thanks for your patience and interest!

The Befuddling Case of the Vanishing Quotation Marks

In the past week, I've read two new books where the authors decided to ommit the conventional double quotation marks to set off the characters' direct dialogue. I'm not certain why they elected to do so, but I can say the practice is more than a little annoying to me. Sometimes I don't have a problem with the missing quotation marks. It's easy to spot the dialogue when you get into the author's prose rhythms and writing style. However, these two books I'm speaking of mash the dialogue into long paragraphs, making it onerous, slow reading. Bad idea if you're trying to sell books. I don't want to spend my attention trying to dig out when the characters are speaking. It detracts from my following and, perhaps, enjoying the narrative. Maybe the practice is supposed to be a literary or artistic deal. The pity is both stories were intriguing reads. But again and again, I had to go back to see where the dialogue started and stopped. Readers are picky about their likes and dislikes--believe me, I hear about it all the time from the readers of my books. Would I buy another book from an author not using simple but necessary quotation marks? Most likely not. I only hope this no quotes business isn't a new trend that will solidify into the norm for most fiction writers. I personally know one author who will never do it. I'm too old school, I suppose.

For further reading, this link is to an interesting 2008 article from the Wall Street Journal on the same topic: http://is.gd/tPTvVw

What Is Your Most Widely Read Review?

Back when I had more reading time, I reviewed many of the books I read on Goodreads. So, just curious, I checked my Goodreads' reviews to see which one had garnered the most votes from readers like you. I was pleased to see A BULLET FOR CINDERELLA (a wicked title) by the grand old pulp writer John D. MacDonald took the honors. JDM was probably better known for his knight-errant Travis McGee series. BULLET was written before Travis came along during JDM's days as a paperback writer in the 1950s. For my money, that was the period he produced his finest works. Anyway, I decided to run my review in full below in hopes you'll be intrigued enough to add him to your To-Read list. I also included the link to my review if you want to hit "LIKE" button for it, as well. http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/396002277

My review...

I was leaning to 4 stars, but the suspenseful ending was just the type I'm a sucker for, so I gave A BULLET FOR CINDERELLA 5 stars. I've read perhaps a dozen of the early John D. MacDonald novels, and for my money, they represent his top form writing. The Travis McGee titles are very fine, but I remain a bigger fan of JDM's pre-Travis fiction. JDM does a nifty job of setting up the romance triangle, including the dark-haired femme fatale. A BULLET FOR CINDERELLA was published in 1955, so the level of violence and sex isn't raw or visceral like today's noir can be. There are grisly murders, and plenty of other hardboiled scenes, nonetheless. I see other the readers and critics (including the reviews when BULLET was published) have given it lower marks. But I got into the story and character enough to be entertained and diverted. That was all I ever wanted from BULLET.

Fictional Characters: Age Is More Than A Number

One of the character details I look out for whenever I'm reading a novel is the protagonist's age. Sometimes their age is reported along with the introductory description of the protagonist. This straightforward approach just drops their age on you. I've noticed in other novels the age is given in more subtle ways. For instance, the age might be mentioned somewhere else in the novel. Perhaps we're told the protagonist runs fast for a fifty-nine-year-old man. Or a maturer lady of a certain age has kept her youthful looks. Other details about the protagonist like the hair or eye color don't matter to me so much (or at all). However, I like to set their age in my mind as a means for me to visualize the protagonist. Unlike in real life, we can find out the protagonist's age without having to ask it. I've read in novels re: age something like "she could be anywhere from forty to sixty." If only. That is an exaggeration. None of us at 60 appear like we did at 40. Unlike in real life, we can find out the protagonist's age without having to be nosey and ask it.

Are You Getting That Beach Read Feeling Yet?

I don't know why, but there's something extra nice about reading a book outdoors on a sunny, pleasant day. It could be at the beach or the swimming pool. Shady hammocks and screened porches are also great reading places. We have an outdoor concrete patio that I like to take advantage of on such days. Even a park bench with the sounds of other folks also enjoying themselves is fine. I know people like to draw up the summer reading lists of what the novels they want (or hope) to spend time with during their days off. Perhaps our summer reading joys carry over from our childhoods when we checked out armloads of books from the public library. The kids still do it at our library. I've blogged before that Sue Grafton's Alphabet series is one of my favorite summertime reads. I began reading them a few summers ago, and it sort of developed into a June-to-August tradition. Bill Pronzini's Nameless Detective titles also appeal to me during the warmer temperatures. Anyway, that's what struck me this afternoon with a big snowstorm bearing down on us. So, I'm making out my summer reading list before I have to grab my snow shovel.

A Few Proofreading Hints

As ebooks become more popular, there's a bad reputation they have for containing typos, grammar mistakes, and mispellings. Oops, better make that misspellings. Seriously though, as a professional writer, nothing makes you cringe more than having a reader who plunked down their good money for your book to point out the mistakes a thorough proofreading should've caught. So, I thought about some ways to help improve proofreading operations.

1. I like to change up the type font, type color, and sometimes type size (made larger) if I'm proofreading the manuscript on my laptop screen.

2. I always print out the manuscript to comb through it. This is an expensive (printer ink toner) but necessary step.

3. I've seen hints like adjusting the screen's resolution and changing from justified to unjustified text. Both sound interesting but I've never tried either technique.

4. Read the manuscript backwards or read it out loud. I've used both techniques. The step(s) take longer. My results can be fair to good.

5. Use a proofreading round devoted to just checking the punctuation the grammar, etc.

6. Create an individualized checklist of what things to look out for in your proofreading. I tend to repeat the same mistakes over and over.

7. Sometimes I'll use google to see how a phrase or even word is used in reputable places like the NY Times. Or I'll see how often it appears in the google search hits I bring up.

8. Never trust spellcheck. Never trust grammar check. I make the final decision on whatever is flagged.

9. Sometimes I like to flip through the manuscript's pages and let my eyes run spot checks on the text. Mistakes can jump out at me such as a missing article.