Fuzzy Wuzzy Wuz He?

I'm having trouble lately with my "was, were" usage. I never thought about it too much before, but I heard an editor speaking the other day and he commented that he could tell an amateur writer by his (or her) use of was and were. He counted them up and if there were more than...I don't remember the number...like 4-8 I think...on a page, then he wrote the writer off as a newb!
I'm concerned about my use of "was" and "were" now.
I wish I knew more about this. Guess I have some reading to do...

Here's a clip of some current writing (warning - I have not editted this so it is raw Gates)

"The sight of Hadrian’s Wall always amazed Taliesin. He stared in awe as they approached. It had been visible now for hours, but as they got closer, it seemed to grow taller and taller.


“First time seeing the wall, bard?” Lamorak asked.

“No,” Taliesin replied. “I have been here before, but it still amazes me.”

“You have been above the wall?” Lamorak asked.

“No,” Taliesin said.

“Then why would you come here? Just to see it? Are you an Engineer as well?”

“As a bard, I travel a great deal,” Taliesin said. “I wanted to see the very line that divided the civilized world from barbarism.”

“Is that what the wall does?” Lamorak asked.

“According to the Romans,” Taliesin said.

“I live above the wall,” Gawain said where he rode close by. “I hardly find it to be barbaric. Rough maybe. The North requires hardy people, but it’s not as uncivilized as the Romans thought.”

“Not everyone thinks so highly of Roman ‘civilization’ anyway,” Morgan said with a smile.

“What can we expect above the wall, Gawain?” Arthur asked.

“It’s hard to say, Arthur,” Gawain replied. “When we traveled from Lothian, we traveled with an army. I saw the roads and the towns along the roads, but I have not ventured into the wilds much, except on hunting trips.”

“I have traveled the North extensively, Arthur,” Merlin said. “The people there are people like everywhere else. They are proud of their lands and they are fearful of outsiders. The project an image of ferocity and barbarism to keep you from wanting to ride through the gates of Hadrian’s Wall. They are not monsters and they don’t eat babies.”

“So there are no monsters above the wall?” Taliesin asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Merlin replied.

Taliesin looked at the aged wizard and wondered, not for the first time, just what mysteries Merlin had seen in his years.

The Wall loomed ahead, almost obscured through a falling snow that almost made it look like a ship coming out of the fog. The Milecastles could be seen by the flickering torches and fires that warmed the soldiers there. Directly ahead of Arthur’s party was a large fort, Aesica or “Great Chesters”

The smell of the wood fires drifted across the road and it carried with it the smell of roasting meat. Taliesin’s stomach grumbled. After weeks on the road, the thought of a fort and a well appointed kitchen struck his fancy.

“Smells good, eh?” Arthur said. “Perhaps we’ll eat better than the black bread and stew we have eaten at the way stations along the road.”

“I would like a bath and a bed,” Morgan said.

I would like to join you, Taliesin thought, but he didn’t give words to this thoughts. Morgan had been ignoring him more lately and he wondered if she was finished with him. It hurt him to think she might be. He was very fond of the learned priestess.

“Look, someone’s coming,” Merlin said, pointing up the road towards Aesica.

A pair of figures were riding towards Arthur’s party. They would surely have recognized the Pendragon standard that Bors held aloft.

“I believe it’s Lucan,” Arthur said. “I don’t recognize the man he is with, though he looks like a Ranger. Not one of Alymere’s Ghost, though.”

Arthur was right. It was Lucan, Bedivere’s half brother and second in command of The Bulls.

“I wonder if he found Bedivere like I asked?” Arthur wondered aloud.

Lucan was dressed in his armored finery as befitted a cavalry officer. His breastplate was polished, his boiled leather was shiny and neat. His blue cape floated behind him as he rode. He wore no helmet, letting his long blonde hair flow behind him. The resemblance to Bedivere was clearly visible and Taliesin saw Morgan watching the approaching warrior. Taliesin thought he saw admiration for Lucan in Morgan’s eyes and Lucan was truly a fine specimen, like his half-brother. Taliesin felt the hot stab of jealousy. "

I included a section where I described a character - in this case Lucan. See what you think

Stuff GGE needs

In 2011, GGE needs:

• A redesigned website. One that rocks
• Illustrations for some stories and some cover images (It's always amazed me that even with $$$ to spend, I can't get artists onboard)
• An editor-for-hire who can edit grammatically, but also provide story input into our finished works (3 and counting)
• We need to finish a few other stories that are in their infancy right now
• We need someone to work with us to convert some prose to screenplays

Not sure where I will find these talented people yet, but they have to be out there. Some of it, we will do internally. If you know someone, send 'em our way!

Getting it Right

It's pretty likely to hear me say (often) "Get it written, THEN get it right."
I say this for the obvious reason. Many people get hung up around the thought that they can't get it "right" so they obsess in the outlining phase, or they write and rewrite the first chapter ad infinitum. For these folks, my advice is right on the money. Write it first...then get it right.
There is a second part though...when I say get it right, I mean really get it right.
If you want to attract a publisher, sending them a crap manuscript is not "getting it right". After you get it written, you need to spend a while getting it right. This, to me, is the hardest part because you want to be doing something else, but you have to force yourself to focus on getting your work right. This means editting, polishing, rewriting, etc.
You need to get all of this done before sending it to an editor. If you want to stand out, then a great story is part of it. Good characters is part of it. Sending them a work that is already substantially "right" will definitely help get some attention.
If you plan on foregoing a traditional publisher and do it yourself...then getting it right is even MORE crucial! You'll have a huge stigma to overcome. That stigma is out there for a reason. Lots of do-it-yourself books don't have the quality of a traditionally published one. They can. They should. People just haven't taken the time to do the second part. I have bought several self published works with a great storyline, awesome characters and even a really nice looking book with an eye-catching cover, only to have my heart broken by poor editting, common errors and stilted dialogue.
So, now that you've got it written, now you really have to get to work.

Editing

Well, I am deep into editting GGE's latest work, a fantasy novel set in a grim world of peril for our protagonists. No nice Tolkien-ish world for GGE. View Tolkien's world after a Mad Max type apocalypse.
The story was a blast to write. The editting is not terrible because it is like revisiting old friends, but it reminds me of how much work getting a finished product can be.
We wrote it, then went through 2 read-throughs for general comments. Had some other folks read it and now I am doing a more thorough edit. Then we will pay a professional editor to have a go at it. Then we will shop it around and if it gets picked up by a publisher...guess what? More edits are likely. It is fun, but also a lot of hard work.

Why am I posting this paragraph whining about editting? Just as a reminder to write, write, write but then polish, polish, polish!

The publishing procedure

I don't pretend to know the trick to being published. In fact, I once read there are just three things to know to get published, unfortunately no one knows what the three things are. I don't know about that, but I do know one thing. Patience is a requirement. Of course everyone talks about persistence, but you don't hear about patience often.

Here's my example. GGE is working on two properties right now. "The Forsaken" and "Insurrection" (both working titles). Both of these are substantially finished. Note, I said substantially finished. Not finished. I was very tempted today to send the works off with some query letters. Finally, my better nature took hold of me and I held off. The works should not (and will not) be sent out to anyone until they are more than substantially finished. They need to be finished and polished and polished and polished.

I am always once to seek out a metaphor...here is my metaphor: I am currently working on restoring an antique armoire from near-destruction to its original grandeur (another hobby of mine). Anyway, the armoire is re-assembled, but is not yet stained or covered in a coat of polyurethane. It needs sanding with rough sandpaper and then sanding again with finer sandpaper and then sanding again with even finer sandpaper all so that when I finally do stain the armoire and cover it in poyurethane it will look as good (or better) than it did a hundred years ago. If my patience ran out and I stained it right now, it would still look good, but it would not look perfect. The same is true for a story and my odds of selling a story on behalf of GGE go up considerably when it is perfect.

Our stories will be in competition with hundreds of other stories received by agents and editors. I hope to only compete with the other polished stories, not the ones that are just "good enough".