Category Editing

So close, I can almost taste it

freyathewriter 3 Comments

Although, what do books taste like?

I imagine the boys in J2 could tell me, as they used to chew up pieces of paper and spit them at anyone within spitting distance (except teachers). Charming, but then nine year olds are pretty uncouth and (literally) unwashed, aren’t they? Or maybe that was just the 1970s. Or just Birmingham. I dread to think. Although having said that, I am reliably informed that it wasn’t just the Wumpty buses that had ‘No Spitting’ signs painted on the interior walls…

What’s a Wumpty bus? Ahhhh… So, here’s a bit of history. The Transport Act of 1968 created Passenger Transport Executives in four major British conurbations. Each PTE was managed by transport professionals carrying out the policies of a Passenger Transport Authority made up of elected representatives from local authorities. Their task was ‘….to secure or promote the provision of a properly integrated and efficient system of public passenger transport to meet the needs of that area….’

The initial tools were the municipal bus undertakings in the relevant areas. The West Midlands PTE absorbed the Corporation buses of Birmingham, Walsall, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton with effect from 1 October 1969. The largest contribution to the new WMPTE came from Birmingham City Transport, accounting for around two-thirds of the new 2,100 strong fleet and 8,500 employees. Birmingham’s dark blue and cream buses were well constructed and maintained so the new PTE operations began life in good condition. (I found this information on the Transport Museum Wythall website, in case you’re a fan of public transport!).

So, WMPTE becomes Wumpty, and Wumpty was also a cheerful bus conductor mascot for the transport executive, as you can see (I remember him well!). I found him in the comments on the Beauty of Transport blog. Ah, the 1970s, when bus conductors were still a thing… (along with power cuts and three day weeks). How times have… improved…?

Anyhoo… back to my initial reason for picking up the blogging ‘pen’ again. I’ve finished my final post-editor edit. There’ll be just one more read through to check for those sneaky typos that seem to regenerate when your back is turned (I know, right?), and then Anti-Virus will be winging its way to the magical Becky at Platform House Publishing who will be waving her formatting wand and making it look professional on the inside (thank goodness for Becky, I have minimal patience for that kind of task). Her husband James is the marvellous book cover designer – they are a dynamic duo between them and I highly recommend them!

So, this is the state of play. It’s getting closer, ever closer, this publishing my first novel lark.

Gulp!

The Maidenhead of Despair

freyathewriter 3 Comments

You’re never too old to learn.

In my opinion, the moment you stop learning, you also stop living. After all, if you close yourself off to learning, or decide now is the time to rest on your laurels in a ‘my work is done’ kind of way, you could find that you missed out on something marvellous that could have enhance your life, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious.

In the past week or so my life has been enhanced by two things.

  1. Using a hyphen is not always appropriate. There is such a thing as an en dash and also an em dash (so-called because the first is roughly the width of an N, the second because it is roughly the width of an M). They are used in two specific situations where a hyphen will not do!
  2. Indents. Don’t tab to start a new paragraph. Set up your document style beforehand and you will be all set. It’s important when you’re facing the prospect of uploading your work to KDP or another bookish platform for publication.

Now then.

Cue the Slough of Despond and the Maidenhead of Despair (a pun on John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and two towns in England. If you know, you know). I had line-edited 87% of my novel (yes, I did use a calculator to work that out) before I learned this and my heart sank. Did I really need to go through all the chapters I had line-edited so far to sort out the hyphen/en dash/em dash issue? Why the heck didn’t I know about these grammatical tools until now? I’m supposed to be well-read and literate for crying out loud!

Well, I am still both of those things but I’ve never worked in the arena of typesetting for a start and, well, I had subconsciously noticed these overly-large horizontal lines but just assumed they were part of the print-justification process. So sue me (no, please don’t). But I know I’m not alone.

Dear Reader, I did absorb this learning into my novel and it is all (as far as I can tell) suitably edited to include em dashes where appropriate. En dashes were not needed. I feel better for doing it and quite frankly, it is one less thing for my editor to focus on.

As for the Great Tab/Indent Crisis of 2021… well, let’s just say it was a reminder that I never, ever had any training on how to use Word. I just play with it to make it do what I want. And it largely does, although every now and I again I have used Bad Words as I’ve hit the ceiling of my understanding on what this admittedly powerful tool can do. Hit the ceiling of my understanding and also lack the time to determine exactly what I needed to do to resolve the issue.

Dear Reader (you’re still there aren’t you?), I had a very poor night’s sleep on Friday night (something I excel at) and decided early morning on a Saturday was the perfect time to call in the negotiators and release my novel from its poorly-formatted hostage situation. In other words I used the internet to find out what I needed to do. After a bit of finagling, I got there. The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that I had begun writing Anti-Virus in the Notes app on my iPad, then exported those chapters to Word, so legacy ‘formatting’ (in the loosest sense of the word) was an issue. On top of that I’m using an old version of Word for Mac, so finding out how to deal with the tabs/indents using information for more recent versions of Word was… interesting. Again, I used some more Bad Words along the way, although as I discussed with my lovely author friend Lucie Ataya, I didn’t use them all! I saved some for later.

Oh. And just in case you’re wondering… I submitted my (much better formatted and suitably em dashed) novel to my editor yesterday afternoon.

I’m happy.

For now!

A bit on the side(-effects)

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I didn’t post last week. You might have noticed!

I had my first Covid-19 jab on Saturday afternoon (believe me, I haven’t spent so much time in the same place as other humans as I did queueing for and than having my jab!). It was very well organised (of course, thank you NHS), and the jab itself was almost painless.

Side-effects, not so much. Nothing life-threatening, definitely better than catching Covid-19, but oh I really wasn’t on board with the interuption to my editing programme! Flu-like symptoms do not make this writer want to, or be able to, focus on the nitty-gritty of editing, that’s for sure.

I did edit, but boy did I just want to, well, not. I’m all better now. And definitely grateful for having the vaccine. Round two will be better, I’ve no doubt.

But Freya! You’ve got an editor! Editing’s your editor’s job! The clue’s in the name!

Yeah, I know. You know those people who have cleaners but clean and tidy before they come round to clean? Well, there you are. In all seriousness though, I want to make good on all the things I’ve spotted before passing my MS (manuscript, it’s writerly jargon dontcha know), over to my editor. I might as well. I’m not alone in that. That means the editor hopefully can focus on the proper editing and not my funky typos or repeated use of words like shrugged, nodded and sighed (my characters do a lot of those things, they need to dial it back a bit!).

Despite the interruption, I am on track with my plan (I do have one). I’ve even managed to submit a couple of short stories for potential publication this afternoon. That’s a good feeling. And no nodding, shrugging or sighing was necessary.

Toodle pip!