Far better writers than I have suggested the "wait a bit" method of editing.  Write your story, run it through a tidying-up edit run (or two!), then put it in a drawer for a few months.  Bring it out after you've had time to move along in your thinking, and run through it again.

Still look decent?  Fix the typos and sloppy bits.  Now you're ready to share it with a few reasonably objective friends or relatives.

OK, so I don't follow this strictly.  But still, here I am a little under a year later, having another look at "Five Dollars and An Axe", the sequel to "Faithful Unto Death".  No murders in this one, but lots of good detail about life on the farm just before and during the depression.  Ralph continues to be quite a fellow to be admired (as indeed he was).   Scandals?  You bet.  Hardship?  Plenty.  Grasshoppers?  Yep.

U of Michigan is no longer accepting any new fiction submissions, which is a little upsetting.  Call me old-fashioned, but I just don't wanna self-publish.  Who do you have to sleep with to get an agent?  Why does one have to jump through a mess of hoops just to hire someone to peddle a manuscript to one of the mega-publishers? 

Gotta still be some good independent publishers around!

 Ralph in the later years.

Hattie, Ralph, Josie in chairs, various descendants and spouses gathered around.  Wonder who took this photo?