Another step towards published!

  Today I sent my Novel off to be formatted so I can upload it to Smashwords.
I decided not to have it edited again. I got a sample edit and didn't care for the new voice my characters took on. I hadn't had an editor change the way my characters talk and didn't care for it. When I write I get to know the characters and can hear them and even see them. I know their speech style or their accent if they have one. When they speak, they talk like people really talk in real life, with out formality. Sometimes they say quirky things or choose a pet word or a nick-name for a family member. Their speech patterns are age appropriate most of the time. I mean, sometimes there will be an aged character who is really young at heart or a teen who thinks they need to sound like an adult. These people are very real even though they're fiction. So when they get edited it's like they're not themselves any more.
  When I have my work edited I neeeed grammatical errors sniped and for the editor to catch things that I change such as a name or a character's gender. For instance, my novel has a dog in it, actually several but the star dog was originally planned to be male. As any of you dog owners know, canines have their own personalities, right? As I got to know the dog in my story and the character developed I realized he just had to be a she. This change happened in about chapter 3 so I missed changing a few "he's" to "she's." My second editor caught this little slip and I fixed it right up.
  So I have allowed my characters to keep their own voices and hopefully the first two edits took care of the grammatical stuff.
  I'm excited for my novel to be available, it was such an adventure to write I really enjoyed where the story led me - hope my readers do too.