A Cautionary Tale

Saw this just now in one of my author groups.  It's a cautionary tale...

If you use Find and Replace, do not do Replace All.  I did it once years ago to change a character's name.  I think it was Tom and I changed it to something like Bob, so tomorrow became boborrow and tomato became bobato.  Cusbobers? Botbob? Ugh.  It was frustrating and irritating, and kind of hilarious in retrospect.  

Last week, I saw a similar story - only this time it was a reader saying the book they were reading had all sorts of weird errors and after thinking about it for a time, they realized that the author had Replaced all instances of 'ass' with 'arse' (probably to make it more British sounding).  Working on an arseignment?  Going to an arseignation?  Went fishing and caught a big barse?

In the above case, though, I'm not sure what 'too late' would be for a book. Post publication and after a slew of bad reviews perhaps?  Ugh.

If you're silly enough to make this mistake, the fix isn't that hard.  Once you realize you've replaced all your Toms with Bobs, do another Find and Replace, finding Bob this time and going through each separate instance... OR just replace all Bobs with Toms again, and THEN do another search for Tom replacing it with what you meant to replace it with in the first place - each instance separately.  Which is what you should've done the first time, but you got lazy and paid the price.

Sometimes, doing the work the right way, no matter what kind of boring slog it is, actually saves time in the long run.

If you've done it and didn't do that final run-through before you loaded it for publication, only to have people read it and leave bad reviews, you're kinda screwed.  Always check, recheck, and double-check before you hit Publish.  

Sunday Update 10/27/24

 :blink blink: I just woke up, so bear with me.

Still not writing.  In editing news, I finished the first round of edit notes on Friday - 21 pages worth of single spaced notes on college ruled paper.  Not the most notes I've ever made on a book, but still, that's lots.  Yesterday, I sat down and started inputting those notes. Then I had to refer back to Rumor Has It about something and I discovered, to my dismay, that I wrote the entirety of TTW in the wrong person.  Should've written in first person.  Wrote it in third.  Derp.  Much swearing occurred and then much laughing because really, how silly can one gal get?  Sooo... I need to fix that, too.  I did manage to get one page of edit notes entered and five pages edited for notes and POV.  

I almost forgot... SLEEPING UGLY is free starting tomorrow.  Kind of a Halloween thing.  

I read a book this week.  Unfortunately, it doesn't count toward my goal because it was a book I volunteered to proofread for the author.  It's now out for sale, and I bought a copy, so I'll read it again and then count it.  The book?  Oh, it's Silver James' Moonstruck Mafia: Boston.  It's wicked awesome.  Pick up your copy today.

This week in cooking, I made a vat of chicken soup, a crockpot worth of pulled pork, and applesauce bars.  Oh, and I used leftover pulled pork to make Cuban sandwiches, which is no small effort.  (I mean, if I had a panini press, it wouldn't be hard, but I don't, so it is.)

On the activity front, well... you see... Falling on my ass in the woods and twisting my knee kinda put the kybosh on that.  I did get into the woods once and I went for one walk, which wasn't far and I had to turn back for home because my knee was being a whiny little bitch.  Sitting on my butt and eating copious amounts is not helping my overall physical well-being.  Weight: 175.2

The reason I went into the woods is to start putting my 'grow your own trees' scheme into motion. I've been researching what needs to be done to grow these trees from seeds, so I'm working on that.  I gathered seeds from the redbud in our front yard, a couple of spicebushes along the side, the buckthorn up front, and then went down into the woods to gather dogwoods seeds.  Yesterday, I separated all the redbud seeds from their pods, put them in a coffee mug, and doused them with boiling water.  They need to sit in that for 24 hours and then I can hit the next step, which if memory serves is to put them in dirt.  The other seeds all require different magic, so I could be remembering wrong.  Dogwood seeds need to be cleaned and scarified (i.e. the process of artfully damaging the seed hull to allow for germination), then they need to live in the fridge for 3-4 months.  Same with the buckthorn seeds.  The spicebush seeds just need to be cleaned, I think, and then chilled.  As I do this, I'll make sure to apply the right method for each seed.  Should be fun.

I'm also thinking about doing wood carving in my spare time.  Right now, I'm researching the tools and trying to see which ones to buy.  We'll see if I keep at it or get bored before I even start.

Oh, we went fishing this week.  It was only for a couple hours and I only caught one fish, but it was good to get out again.  And now I have nightcrawlers, so I can go whenever and not have to worry about waiting for my bait shop to open up.  

While we were driving to the fishing hole, we saw two bald eagles flying low and dancing in the air around each other.  It was AWESOME.  We also saw yellow-bellied sapsuckers this week, so yay!  I love fall migration.

Okay, that was a lot of read, so thank you for getting all the way down here.  Have a great week!  And feel free to drop a comment to let me know how your week went.

Thursday This n That

 I've been a bad blogger this week.  I blame it on marketing.  By the time I get done marketing and calling Mom, I just plain forget that I was supposed to blog.  Oh, sure, I could do a blog post at night,  but I'm busy doing other things at night.  And yes, I would like some cheese with that whine.

Last night, Sawyer decided to sleep with us.  Awesome.  Not so awesome was the fact that he wanted to sleep against my legs.  18-20 pounds of cat pressed up against my lower legs did not do me any good and I woke up with my right leg all ouchy.  More whine?  Yes, please.

On a happier note, I'm reading a friend's new book and loving it.  It's not available for sale yet, and I'm supposed to be proofreading it, but it's so good I keep forgetting that I'm supposed to be looking for flaws, so I have to go back and re-read a lot.  Yay for good fiction. And I get to read it first, so neener neener boo boo. =op

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I've been into crossword puzzles lately.  I was doing the ones in the back of our local electric company's monthly magazine, but I've gone through all of my back issues.  I broke down and bought a book of crossword puzzles.  They're marketed as fun and easy.  Easy?  Yes.  And kinda fun.  I'd have more fun if they were more challenging, but I'll take what I can get.  They're mostly just to exercise the brain and entertain me while I'm smoking, so they're doing their job.  Yay.

Finn is circling my desk wanting attention... and there he is... jumped up on my desk and down into my lap.  Typing with a cat in your lap is not the easily thing to do.  And he is getting in my face because I'm not paying attention to him.  Cat doesn't understand that I have typing to do.  LOL

On that note, I'll call this good and shower my kitty with the attention he so richly deserves.  Have a great day, everyone.  Peace out.

Sunday Update - Week 11

Well, here we are again.  Another Sunday in 2022.  Almost exactly two years from the start of this crap.  Two years ago last week was when I was out in the pouring rain amidst the lunatic fringe, trying to find toilet paper, and I locked my keys in my car.  Two years ago this coming week was the circus of trying to get Owl from up there to down here.  Blerg.

Anyway, that was then and this is now.  

I finished inputting my beta notes on Monday.  Since then, I've spent every day this week going through SSS with a fine-toothed comb and really trying to catch every little thing.  110K words worth of every little thing.  I'm up to page 219 out of 377 now.  158 pages left to go.  I did 81 pages yesterday, with brief breaks for food, baking, and a walk.  Nothing else much is getting accomplished, but hey, the book is nearer to publication every day.

I also wrote like 4000 words on SCIU 4 early in the week before I started pushing to get SSS done.  And I reworked my blurb yesterday morning.  Busy busy busy.  I tried editing and writing on the same day, and I am totally not up to that speed yet.  I'll keep trying, though.  Just not this week because I want... no, I need to get this done.

In reading news, I finished one book last Saturday and read most of another book before I leapt into the deep proofreading on Tuesday.  I'll read when this manuscript is published.

On the baking/cooking front, I made a roast chicken, pizza, my version of Mexican pizza, and yesterday I did an Applesauce Coffee Cake.  Yum.

In activity news, I did something active 5 out of 7 days.  Mostly it was walking.  I put over 4 miles on my legs this week, which is about half of what I've done so far this year.  Woohoo.  No weight check.  The scale and I aren't friends these days.

That's about it.  Time for me to get back to proofing.  I proof from early morning until lunch and then I veg until about 3 then it's back to proofing until dinner.  I eat then I proof.  Then I take a break for a walk.  Then I proof until about an hour before bed.  I'll be so happy when this is over and the book is published.  

How was your week?

Thursday This n That

I'm on Linked In and I occasionally get job listings in my email.  One yesterday sounded interesting - Remote Proofreader.  Cool.  I went over to look at it.  The listing was rife with weird characters and grammatical issues.  I wonder if they put it up that way as an initial test for people applying for the job.  Sort of an "if you can read this and fix it, you're the person for us.  ROFL  (There were parts of the job, once I parsed it out, that sounded hinky, so no.  And no, I'm not really looking for a job, but if something amazing came along, who knows?)

Today, the last of my books drops out of Kindle Unlimited.  I'll get it set up and uploaded to D2D this weekend.  

In case you're not on FB or you missed it, here's a pic of one of the foxes that traipsed through my yard a couple days ago:

Yeah, it saw me and bolted, so I didn't get a chance for a good pic.  If it hadn't stopped under that oak, I wouldn't have gotten one at all.  

Yesterday, I dusted and vacuumed everything but the office.  And now I'm sore.  That's just not fair.  Getting old sucks.  Sore or not, I'll get the office done today.

I also rearranged the spare room.  I put the exercise bike under the other window, so I have a view of the bird feeder while I ride.  Of course, moving that there meant I needed to move the table with my radio and cassettes next to it (for better indoor biking), but to do that I had to move the little bookshelf where I keep the stock of my paperbacks and also the plant stand and the chair.  Anyway, the room's like I want it.  For now.  Unfortunately, I was too tired to actually ride the damn bike yesterday.  Maybe today.

:sings: Maybe today, we can put the past away...

Funny how certain phrases can make a song instantly pop into my head.  That was Jumper by Third Eye Blind.

Hey did you hear YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are merging?  They're calling it YouTwitFace.  ROFL

And with that, I'll leave.  Have a great day, everyone.  And drop a comment on your way out.  

Randomosity

 It's Tuesday.  How did it get to be Tuesday again already?  Not that there's anything special about Tuesday.  It's just that I feel like we just had a Tuesday and here it is again.  Where the hell did Monday go?

Sunday I reached down to do something behind my recliner and wasn't paying attention to where the back of the chair was in relation to my head.  Boink.  I'm sure it left a mark, but it's above the hairline.  

Yesterday, it rained off and on.  During one of the off periods, Hubs figured it was a good time to walk up to the mailbox to mail a couple birthday cards out.  Halfway there, the rain decided to turn on again.  Sploosh.

I have all my proofer notes ready to go, but the will to work isn't ready for anything.  On the upside, the proofers seemed to enjoy the story and reports are that the notes aren't that bad.  So what's the problem there, Mr. Gumption, eh?

Today's bird of the day is a tufted titmouse. If you have a bunch of them is it titmice or titmouses?  Spellcheck says titmice is correct (no red squiggle).  Titmouses sounds more fun to me.  Especially is you say it like a German psychiatrist.  Tit mouwziz.  Okay, maybe that's just me.

I went to bed last night with like 10 pages left to read in this book.  I was right in the middle of the climax when the cat started meowing that she needed to use the litterbox.  I tried to ignore her long enough to finish the book, but it became apparent that she was getting irritated.  I set the book aside, took her to the litterbox, and then got ready for bed.  Then I couldn't sleep because the book wasn't finished and I didn't know what happened and I was amped up from the thrill of the story.  I should've just finished the damn book.  With only about 10 pages left, he'd better get cracking on wrapping this thing up satisfactorily.  =o\  I'll finish it as soon as I finish this post.

Speaking of which, that's probably more than enough yattering out of me today.  How's things with you?

Thursday This n That

I made another cake yesterday - a chocolate oil cake with fudgy frosting.  This will last longer than the coffee cake, for sure, because it's too rich to eat big pieces.  Still, that's only like 5 days worth instead of 4.  If it was just Hubs and I, the cake would last a week, but there's three of us now.  The Owl wants to make the cake next time.  She's talking about honey cake. 

I think Blue Bunny is shorting us on ice cream.  I mean, all of the manufacturers have switched to less than a half gallon in their 'half-gallon' containers (with the exception of super-expensive Blue Bell), but I think Blue Bunny went even smaller.  Three modest bowls of Chocopolitan and it's already 2/3rds empty.  =o\

Yesterday, I did a kind of a French bread pizza bar.  I got the half-loaves ready and everyone got to pick what they wanted on theirs.  I did roast chicken, ham, mushrooms, and black olives on mine.  I do love me some chicken pizza.  Owl did pepperoni, ham, black olives, and banana peppers.  Hubs went old school with pepperoni and mushrooms.  Plenty of leftovers for today.  Yay.

The prothonotary warblers are passing through.  They're so pretty.  And now I know what prothonotary means - it's a clerk in the Roman Catholic church that wears yellow robes.  Heh.  Like the cardinal, the little birds are named because the people who first saw them thought they looked like religious dudes.  Anyway, I love it when they pass through.  They give me a happy.

Speaking of birds, the sky outside is just starting to get light and already I can hear a Carolina Wren singing his song of the day.  They're very loud for such a small bird.  These also give me a happy. 

Can you believe it's already Memorial Day weekend this weekend?  Speaking of which, one of my local papers had a red message across the top this week wishing everyone a safe and happy Labor Day.  Umm, yeah.  Oops.  I know they don't have a huge staff, but someone should've caught that.  Egg meet face.  Derp.

And that's it for me this morning.  Time for more coffee.  Definitely.  Got any this-n-that for me today?

Thursday This n That

Welcome gentle friends.  And not-so-gentle ones.  Just make sure you pet the kitty gently or she'll go all fur and fangs on your ass.

Ahem.

Anyway, I'm reading a pretty good book right now.  I mean, the story's good.  Gripping.  Suspenseful.  Good backstory and side story.  Unfortunately, the punctuation makes me kind of want to poke out my eyes, but the story is good enough to make me keep reading, so there's that.  And that's even making allowances for a difference in how people do things between that country and this one.

We got actual snow yesterday.  Just a dusting, but this is the first snow that stuck.  The flitters we got a couple days ago melted when it hit the ground.  Lucky for me, I'd already finished my errands and was warm in my recliner when the flakes started drifting down.

I should probably go to Wallyworld today.  If the roads are okay.  Meh.

I got the segue thing done after chapter 2 and what used to be chapter 3.  And I'm pretty pleased with it.  Probably needs some fleshing out, but the bones are there and I can move forward again.

That pumpkin pie bread I talked about the other day is to die for.  It really does get better the longer it sits.  I've got one loaf in the fridge... well, a couple slices of it anyway... and the other in the freezer.  So good.

The yellow-bellied sapsuckers have returned!  They're a winter resident here, so I always miss them when they leave in the spring and look forward to their return.  Yay!

Man, the birds are really going through the suet this week.  With the drop in temps, they're needing the extra fat in their diets.  Eat on, little buds, we've got more where that came from.

Had to do some business correspondence this week, with people I'm not related to, and I didn't do anything tragically stupid.  Well, except for saying I was CC'ing someone and then forgetting to CC them.  Derp.  I've become such a hermit, I'm not sure I know how to talk to people anymore.  Not in a formal, business setting.  I usually just let it fly and then wonder later if I've put my foot in my mouth.  I'm sure I inadvertently piss people off on a regular basis.

Okay, so I'm done here this morning.  What's up where you're at?

Rambling

I woke up this morning thinking it was Monday.  Took me a bit to reset the brain and convince myself it wasn't. 

Saw someone this morning who'd misspelled the title of their own book in the marketing copy of a FB post.  Thankfully, the cover was spelled right.  Proofread, people.

So, I contacted my cover artist yesterday to let her know I was ready when she was.  She's jammed, so I gave her the option of pushing the UatB cover back.  It's not like I need-need it right this month.  Hell, if I don't get off my dead ass, I might not need it this year.  We'll see what she says. 

We took a walk yesterday.  It was only 48 degrees.  I am so not ready for that cold yet, especially considering it was in the 80s last week.  I bundled up in a turtle neck, a sweater, and a fleecy jacket.  I was even wearing gloves.  My core was comfortable, but my face and legs were chilly cold.  Bleh.  I guess I need to get back to exercising inside.

I DNFd another book yesterday.  Which kind of made me sad because it was in a series I had once enjoyed.  But the book was irritating the bejeezus out of me.  Life's too short to continue reading irritating things.  It was probably just me.  There's only so long I can continue reading a series before I'm just annoyed with it.  Familiarity breeds contempt and all that.  I had the same thing happen with The Cat Who series and with the Dresden Files series.  Which is probably why I stopped writing Once Upon a Djinn at four books.  Enough was enough for me.  Sorry to the readers who wanted more but writing more of those wouldn't have been a good thing for anyone.

Sitting and thinking about Ugly and the Beast, I realize the problems I was having were caused by a need to rewrite the thing.  I got off on a weird tangent and it was turning into a book I didn't want to write.  Do-over!  But not right now because I got the edits back for Unequal. 

I am so not ready to face the edits.  But I'm going to get ready because I need to get this book out this year.  I've made a commitment and I'm sticking to it.  So, suck it up, buttercup, and get your butt to work.  =op

That's enough rambling out of me this morning.  Comments?  Questions?  Whips to crack? 

PSA and Rant

If you're a writer... hell, if you're in any kind of business where you present marketing materials to the world... proofread your stuff before it hits the public eye. 

It goes without saying that your books should be proofread.  Over the course of 65 to 150 thousand words, though, you're bound to miss something here or there.  With those words, do the very best you can. 

In a marketing materials, generally the shorter the better.  But let's say, for the sake of argument, you're putting out a blurb of like 250-500 words.  Surely, you can proofread that to perfection.  Surely.  And if you can't, then get someone else to do it.  Get several someones.  Something.

I just read such a blurb for a person trying to sell their book on how to sell books.  Not a damn comma in the whole thing.  And there should've been.  Trust me.

I've seen ads in the local paper.  Maybe 20 words?  With misspellings.  Now, sure, these aren't for writing services, but still.  You're touting your restaurant as being an upscale alternative in the area?  Then make your ad look like you gave a damn.  If you spell Wednesday like Wensday it looks like you don't care.  How can I then trust you to care whether my fork is spotless or whether your employees wash their hands?  :shudder:

Hell, I've seen misspellings and typos in the damn news.  Argh.

These are things that ought to be proofread to within an inch of their existences.  But no.  And people are getting paid to write that stuff, which really offends the hell out of me.

Yes, yes.  This pot is calling the kettle tarnished.  If you consider these blog posts as marketing materials, that is.  I've warned y'all before.  I don't proofread the blog, for the most part.  If I see an error, I fix it, but other than that, blog posts are on their own.  Non-marketing FB posts are on their own, too.  Sometimes, I'm just a person, jotting my thoughts down for the world to see. 

My blog posts probably make my editor cringe sometimes.  I can almost imagine her up there shouting "COMMAS, B.E., COMMAS".  :shrug: 

This has been a Public Service Announcement... that sort of turned into a rant.  :shrug:  Do the world a favor and proofread your marketing materials.  Please. 

Editing Stuff and Junk

It's the Tuesday after Labor Day here in the states.  Do not get me started on the whole Labor Day thing.  Suffice it to say, I spent a large portion of the day working - mainly because I took all of Sunday off.  It was awesome.  But awesome days do not get books ready for publication. 

So, anyway, I got the AWE edits done with the exceptions of my 'crutch words'.  I'll do a wholesale eradication of those today.  I also had a list of typos an early reader sent over.  I took care of all those boo-boos, too. 

(BTW, a macaron is similar but different from a macaroon.  It's a fancy-pants, French cookie I saw on The Food Network.)

What are crutch words?  They're the words a writer sprinkles throughout their manuscript because they're too lazy to find a better way to say something.  Supposedly.  I think it's less a matter of lazy than of habit, but that's me.  Tomorrow, over on Outside the Box, I'll give you a list of my crutch words and exactly how many of each were still in my manuscript after umpteen edits.  My worst crutch words are 'like' and 'then'.  (AWE would say my worst is 'just', but the numbers don't lie. LOL)

Personally, I don't notice them unless someone points them out.  In an earlier edit, I did notice I was using the word 'ass' a lot.  I've changed that.  I think.  I'll have to do a count on those to make sure. 

Anyway... yeah, I know, I said that already... today will be devoted to getting rid of that crap and then formatting.  If all goes well, I should have this ready to go in the next couple days.  Which will be a relief.  Spread your wings and fly, little bird.  I have other birds to fledge. 

If you're a writer, what are some of your crutch words?  If you're a reader, what words stick out in a book for you that you think writers use too often?

Thursday This n That

Today is the last full day of the Kid being here.  Bright and early tomorrow, I drive her back to the airport.  =o\

I discovered this morning that a kid from my alma mater, Northern Michigan University, as well as from back home in Grand Blanc, made the 90-man roster for the Pittsburgh Steelers.  (Okay, I'm not technically from Grand Blanc.  I'm from the countryside outside Atlas and I went to Goodrich.  But I did have a Grand Blanc mailing address, so I'm counting it as home.)  I hope he makes the final roster.  No one from NMU or from GB ever makes it to pro-football.  Go Wildcats!  Rawr.

I took the Kid to the thrift store yesterday.  We walked around, found a few items for her, and a lovely, new, green glass ashtray for me.  I do love interesting, glass ashtrays.

We also took her to Roaring River State Park where we walked the lovely trail beside the river, watched trout fisherman, gazed at the fish you could see easily in the crystal clear waters, and saw several snakes swimming across the river.  When I got home, I used the pics I took for snake identification...

It's a copperhead.  Luckily, every one we saw was swimming away from where we were. 

I'm about halfway through proofreading Fertile Ground, and, picky bitch that I am, I'm discovering way more stuff than I thought I would.  Tweak here, tweak there, everywhere a tweak tweak.  See, this is why I don't go back and read my books after they're published.  There's always a better way to word something somewhere.  Ugh.

I never say this in my books, but all flaws, typos, and mistakes are entirely my fault.  It's kind of a given, isn't it?  I mean, with self-published authors, it is.  Everything we put out is our responsibility from cover to cover.  If there's a mistake in there after we publish, it's our fault.  I try to make them as flaw-free as possible, but I'm not perfect.  It's just life.  If you find a flaw and feel like emailing it to me, I won't get pissy.  I'll just fix it so the next person has a better copy.  And I apologize if one happens to make it past all the proofing processes I put a book through.

Okay, that's it for me today.  Anything to add from your part of the world?