Sunday 2 January 2011

Sleepy in the Swamp.

I am beset by a bout of winter indolence. There are many things to do but I can't find the energy. The Dume genome is part reptile so sluggishness in the cold is not unusual and it gets worse as we get older. Something must be done. Caligula will, in a few years, still be a young Dume able to cope with the cold and I will be ever more torpid every winter. That is a dangerous situation.

One thing that gave me a warm feeling was a note from the editor who is reading 'Jessica's Trap'. A most complimentary note - it seems I don't have to look forward to a huge rewrite. So far. That might be because of my inbuilt pedantry. The second book 'Samuel's Girl', is almost ready to send out too apart from one problem.

I changed word processors part way through that one. The old files had inverted commas that looked like two little straight lines. The new program produced inverted commas that were curly, the more traditional filled-in 6 and 9 shapes. That was easily fixed with search-and-replace so they now all look the same. The program finished by telling me how many replacements it had made. It was an odd number.

Somewhere in that book is a missing quotation mark. I can't send the book anywhere until I find it.

All part of the joys of pedantry.

2 comments:

astrologymemphis.blogspot.com said...

Your copy editor should catch it. I would send it anyway.

It's still in my pile of books to be read. I'm looking forward to it, but the cover creeps me out. I might have to cover it with a brown paper bag, the way we covered our school books in junior high.

Dr. Dume said...

Ah, if only I hadn't noticed. Since I have, I feel obliged to hunt it down and fix it.

Wherever it is, it's well hidden. It might even be moving about. Yes, it's that sort of book.

I won't tell the mother-in-law what you said about her picture. I'm already in enough trouble for comparing her to the full moon.

Your brown paper bag idea is interesting though...