I've written the book (Out of the London Mist by Lyssa Medana, provisional publishing date 23 July), I've had it accepted by the Three Furies Press and it's gone through developmental editing where I tried the patience of Rebekah, who is awesome. If I understand it correctly, developmental editing is where the exasperated editor asks very reasonable questions like, are you sure you have the name right or did you call them something else before? (yep, I changed a name mid chapter - and Rebekah is the genius that added chapters as well)
I'm now on to line editing. This is where my haphazard attitude to punctuation is corrected. I don't know what to do with a comma, and it shows. The line editor who has the thankless task of correcting page after page of incorrectly punctuated speech is an absolute sweetheart. She puts up with me asking idiot questions. And now she has to put up with me worrying about commas.
To be honest, she understands what to do with commas when I don't. My education was appalling. Most of my basic English and Maths was taught by my parents and it left me floundering with a lot of the basics. My lovely editor does this professionally. But every now and again, I quibble. I sort of know she's right, but sometimes I wonder if it changes the sense of things or slows things down. Today I spent twenty minutes fretting about one dratted comma. It doesn't make that much difference. I should just say yea or nay and get over it. I'm worrying that I'm taking myself too seriously.
Last night we had a very pleasant beef stew that I made in the rice cooker. Tonight it was frozen pizza. I wouldn't say today has been a fail, but with the whole comma business, then having to find the bin I had nicked from next door but one (which is empty) to take the excess rubbish from our clear out, because the bin men had emptied it and then it had moved some distance, I don't seem to have got as much done as I would have liked. I've nibbled at the edges of the chaos, but I've done more than I would have done if I didn't try. Tomorrow and Friday are both busy as I have the shop day on Thursday and then hospital with bear for an appointment on Friday.
I'm hoping to be in and out as quickly as possible tomorrow. I'm trying to work out how to avoid shops while keeping up with some of the stuff that we use a lot. I also plan to have a trial drive to the hospital tomorrow to see if I can park near there as there is likely to be a lot less traffic. I hope it is going to be okay. There is some on street parking in the area, I believe, but I don't know where it is. And the hospital is on the edge of Leeds Town Centre, and thoroughly enmeshed in the one way system from hell. I'm hoping I get some sleep tonight. I think I will go back to worrying about the comma instead of parking and walking with bear and what the consultant might say. It's much easier.
Hugs and good health to all.
How exciting to have a book being readied for publishing! I think I use too many commas, myself! Sometimes, I write something, then, go back and delete every other comma! LOL.
ReplyDeleteHope bear's appointment goes well and wish him (and you) all the best. Take care.
I am apt to use too many commas when I write, and I often go back and correct blog posts of mine by removing or repositioning commas. They are fiddly little things at the best of times.
ReplyDeleteThe best way to cope with them is to read the sentence or paragraph out loud without thinking too much about it first and see where you naturally pause or take a breath.
Good luck with the consultant. It's a worrying time in general but with the added extra worry too I hope you'll be alright. Just make sure to take care of yourself too!
ReplyDeleteGood luck for tomorrow. I had my first meeting with my publisher last Friday. She'd sent me through a list of corrections and queries. I had also missed where names had been changed. Then she asked who Mother Moorcroft was. I hadn't got a clue. I haven't read the manuscript for over a year and have been busy writing short stories which are basically back stories of various characters in different times. This week I started going through the story to make sure I'd picked up everyone to add to the dramatis personae. I discovered Mother Moorcroft was a throw away line about someone's mother's family, so there was no reason for me to have remembered. The name is now safely in the d.p.. Now I just have to re-draw the map of the area. I'm usually ok with commas, unless there is a semi-colon involved. I only discovered they existed about ten years ago and like to use them if possible. Then word's grammar check tells me off and changes it back to a comma! Luckily, one of my writing group used to be a GCSE English Tutor, so I can always pick her brains if I'm stuck.
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