21 February 2008 @ 07:00 am
Did you know red pencil is harder to erase than gray pencil?  
Copyedits proceed. The copyeditor has some good notes there, and some excellent catches. And I see that she's onto me and my habit of repeating myself, too. (On the other hand, she likes semicolons too, and has added a few of her own, yay!)

Going through copyedits is rather like putting your book under a magnifying glass, though. Somehow I forget this each time, until they arrive. But suddenly all the small flaws jump out at you, and seem large, and it becomes hard to see the book clearly as a whole.

I'll take it on faith that the whole still holds together, though--just as I have every other time--and resist the urge to seize hold of the manuscript and rewrite it from the ground up.

Because at this stage of the process, that would be bad. :-) Also because I'd like to maintain the illusion that I'm of the sane species of writer.
 
 
( 7 comments — Post a new comment )
Snuffy LaRue: happycat[info]jess_ka on February 21st, 2008 02:25 pm (UTC)
*parses phrase*

/sane/ species of /writer/....hmmm.
Anton Strout[info]antonstrout on February 21st, 2008 02:26 pm (UTC)
there's a sane species of writer?!@?!

Course I'm saying this five days before my on sale date, so I'm probably a poorer judge than usual...
Janni Lee Simner: duckstory[info]janni on February 21st, 2008 02:47 pm (UTC)
Of course not, but I really do want to maintain the illusion. :-)
some guy named Larry[info]lnhammer on February 21st, 2008 03:32 pm (UTC)
Yes, I did know that about red pencil. I edit with a collection of colored (mechanical) pencils, and I only use the red and orange ones when I'm really sure I won't change my mind or be wrong.

---L.

Edited at 2008-02-21 03:35 pm (UTC)
Janni Lee Simner: clayweblog[info]janni on February 21st, 2008 04:03 pm (UTC)
Does green work better? They only had red where I looked, but I may have to look elsewhere ...

Also: why? What makes red pencil different from blue pencil?
some guy named Larry[info]lnhammer on February 21st, 2008 06:21 pm (UTC)
This green doesn't erase well either, but it's better than the red.

Using blue is leftover from how photostats used to work. Now photocopiers pick up all colors equally, so it doesn't matter.

---L.
Janni Lee Simner: clayweblog[info]janni on February 21st, 2008 06:55 pm (UTC)
But what about all these colors makes them stick to paper more than ordinary pencil? Is it the dyes?