WAS INSTEAD OF WERE

I'm excited. Kind of.

THE MAN IN THE BOAT is now available in the MuseItUp bookstore - www.MuseItUp.com - and also on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Boat-ebook/dp/B007JW8L94/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331912514&sr=1-1 but it isn't out yet at Barnes and Noble or from Apple. They sometimes take longer to get books up.

Why I'm not excited? I got an advance copy and read it night before last. Not out of vanity. Mainly to make sure the formatting was okay. And it was. Except about 30-40 pages in, I read a sentence and stopped, horrified. Reread it to be sure. Yep. There was a 'was' where a 'were' should have been.

In the beginning, a line editor read the entire manuscript, sent it back to me with changes, I accepted or defended, sent back; she accepted, disputed, sent back; I accepted/refused/defended, sent back. We finally agreed on the 6th or so version which I reread and approved.

The copy editor got it next. Same procedures. Six or seven times through, I reread one last time and approved.

Publisher got it, sent me final galleys. I went through, reread, made a few last corrections, sent back.

So how the heck did that 'was' sneak in instead of the 'were' that should have been there?

I'm hardened to people disapproving of sex scenes. But this! I'm mortified!

Glad I don't have to worry about my old English teachers reading romance.

PAST TENSES OF VERBS

If it's blow, blew, blown
And know, knew, known,
And grow, grew, grown,
And throw, threw, thrown,

Then why is it not
Mow, mew, mown,
Or sow, sew, sown
Or snow, snew, snown
Or tow, tew, town?

It's a wonder anyone can learn English as a second language!

GRAMMAR

So I'm away from home and catching up on some reading. I just finished a book written in first person and noticed, for not the first time, 'I' instead of 'me' used in the narrative.  Such as...between you and I... and also ...with you and I...

Is this deliberate because it's from the heroine's point of view and she doesn't know that 'me' is the object of prepositions while 'I' is for subjects? Or am I wrong about the correct use of 'I' and 'me'?

This bothers me -- like I'm so great at English grammar myself!