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by Callie Rowan · published via Smithbook
A freelance editor gets the manuscript of her career from the one novelist who refuses to cut a single word.
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"The margin notes back and forth are the best part. Nora is my hero."
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Inside
Nora Bassett edits other people’s books from a desk overlooking Lake Champlain. When a small press hires her to edit the long-awaited second novel by Declan Frye, she expects a genius. She gets nine hundred pages, a man who answers notes with longer notes and a deadline in six weeks. Second Draft is a sharp, funny romance about red pens, cold coffee and learning which parts of a story you can live without.
The manuscript arrived in a banker’s box because Declan Frye did not trust e-mail. Nora carried it up two flights to her apartment on North Street, set it on the kitchen table and looked at it for a while. Nine hundred and twelve pages. The press wanted four hundred by the end of the month. She made coffee, uncapped a red pen and read the first page. It was good. It was, if she was honest, very good, the kind of sentence that made her sit back in her chair. It was also followed by a nine-page de
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Second Draft · © 2026 Callie Rowan.
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