Paksworld

When my first published story came out,  I was startled at how differently it read, set in a two-column layout.  I’d been worried the story wouldn’t feel fast-paced enough–but in that format, it flew by, almost too fast-paced.   That was my first experience of how the choice of layout affects a story.

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Page proofs are the stage of proofing where you realize what you should have done in revisions (but didn’t), and copy edits (ditto.)    And you can’t make big changes in page proofs.  Well, not without arousing the fury of everyone involved, anyway.

But there are compensations.

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Because I’m stuck in page proofs of book one, with a deadline on it, and needing to prepare a presentation for another (and different) university gig, you won’t hear back from me about what you sent for some time.  Don’t worry about that.  The rain is also a factor.  My phone’s out completely and the other phone hisses.   At least the internet hasn’t died, but we’re due even more rain (it’s now over 7.5 inches in two days) and this has made some ordinary chores…time-consuming.

Next stage in production: the page proofs (same as galleys in the old days) arrived today while I was in the city.    Page proof  errors beyond a certain number are charged to the writer (they cost money, that is)  so the only things that can be changed in proof are little things (like a missing quotation mark, or a misspelled word.)

These are physical pages (and must be physical pages–part of what you’re looking for is typographical errors due to the software going from manuscript pages to book-design pages) and I can tell you I’m already getting a shiver, just glancing at the first ones–they’ve used that distinctive font for the chapter heads and it’s beautiful.   However, I have a lot of pages to go over and the deadline, so I will be diving into that rather than working on book two revisions or book three first draft until it’s done.  Or posting here, most likely.

Not sure how long that will take–depends in part on how many interruptions there are.  But I’ll start tomorrow early.     (Never start page proofs this late at night–tired eyes aren’t good for proofreading.)

It rained in the city again today, but up here has only drizzled some.  Still, drizzle’s better than dry.