Right.


The end is nigh, though, as you can see from the much-diminished stack of paper to the right - the one without all the red speckles at the side and in the text.

In case you are wondering about the speckles in the margin, I'm using a standardised system of correction marks - Germany has that thing about standardising stuff, and this is one of the instances where rules come in really handy. I learned it out of the Duden (something like the Merriam-Webster for German), way back when I first started copyediting. The basic principle, and the most important one: You do a mark in the text where the correction is needed, then you repeat the same mark in the margin and write out the correction. For inserting commas, you strike the mark right through the last letter of the word, then repeat the letter and place a comma behind it in the margin note. For lots of corrections in one line, you need to be inventive with the marks - but it always remains very clear and very unambiguous, and you only need to scan the margin to see where your next correction will be. There are a few additional special marks, such as "close up margin" or "insert margin" or "italicise", but they are not as important as that basic principle.

I've edited many a manuscript using this system, as it's clear and works well even if lots of corrections are needed. The sheet on the bottom left is for note-taking so I can keep track of the things that need it. The chocolate and tea should be obvious, and the apple is there to make it look as if I might choose a healthy snack. (Hah. Maybe I will.)

The cup, by the way, states my intention for this thing and this day!

I'm in two minds about it being Friday already - on the one hand, I'm really looking forward to the weekend, and on the other hand, I am not too happy that the week is over and I have still so much work left to do. Involving the book, of course, first and foremost.

Proofreading something in a non-native language is one notch harder to do than doing it in your native tongue, so I'm groaning quietly to myself even more than when I do a German proof. At least I know that it is normal for me to start looking at perfectly familiar words and wonder whether they were always written in this weird way...

I'm making progress, though. Assisted, just like the past few days, by ample amounts of tea in different variations and a sleeping cat as well as generous allowances of chocolate. Plus I'm getting some relaxing non-brain-intensive stuff done in the breaks, such as tidying up things and putting stuff away and sorting files. (And brewing more tea, and cuddling the cat - but the last point is compulsory on any day.)

There are three things that make proofreading much nicer to do: tea, chocolate, and sunshine. While I can make sure to get ample of the first two of these, sunshine is harder to control - so I'm absolutely delighted that the sun is actually shining today, and as soon as my stint at the computer will be finished (transferring those edits and corrections to the file itself), I'll sit down in the winter garden and enjoy some sun, light, and warmth while working.

There's not much else, news-wise, at the moment. Proofing is always slow work, and I have to do it in small batches and take frequent breaks to make sure that I'm fully concentrated so that I can catch as much of the issues as possible.

And with that, I will leave you to your regulary scheduled rest-of-day... while I will go read some more. The sooner I'll be finished with that, the sooner I'll be able to spend more time on the next project that has come up, which is also book-related, and which I'll tell you more about as soon as it comes out of its wonky very early stage.

I'm planning to spend a large chunk of my time today on proofreading - the book has been printed, and I am wielding my Red Pen of Doom and am marking it up. It is always amazing and slightly (or more than slightly) frightening how much of a difference the printout makes. I can proofread someone else's article okay on a screen, but with my own writing or with longer things, nothing can beat a printout and the old-fashioned pen.

While I am reading, you might want to have some words to look at, too. So here are links to provide you with fodder:

First of all, 2015 is the anniversary of the English Magna Carta - and the surviving four copies have actually met for the first time ever. Here's a blog post about their meeting. (And about them.)

Isis at Medieval Silkwork writes about ground fabrics for embroidery. (Those that I know are mostly linen, by the way, with a very few silk ones thrown in. And I've found out that if you are doing counted work, there's a limit to how unbalanced a fabric can be to still have a nice-looking embroidery - distortion, anyone?)

More reading? As in book form reading? Here you go.

Penelope Walton Rogers has her own press now, Pangur Press, and she's starting off with free .pdf versions of some of her earlier publications - including the two volumes from York about textiles and textile production.

There you go. Have fun reading!

I'm taking a break from going through the book draft, lovingly copyedited by my colleague over the last few days. It really is amazing how many inconsistencies and typos can slip through, even if you are trying for consistency and trying to have a typo-free text.

I don't have many more pages to go, though - and then, after a short break, I will go into the next stage: printing out the manuscript and giving it a good, nice, on-paper read. Some things just can't be done on a screen, and proofreading your own long text definitely is one of them.

The cat, meanwhile, is lying on her bed beside my desk and is snoring, and occasionally she's making small funny sleepy-cat noises. She's also taking great care of sleeping a similar amount of time on her left side and her right side, though sometimes she gets stuck in the transition and sleeps in a weirdly twisted s-shape for a while.

No rest for me, though - coffee instead! And about 40 more pages before I can go do something else for a bit...

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who think that writing a book, and even more so writing several books, will make you wealthy; and those who know better.

Yes, there are some exceptions to that rule - J.K. Rowling springs to mind, obviously, and a few others have had roaring success and become wealthy from writing. But taking that for the usual outcome would be like supposing everybody who dabbles in IT will end up like Bill Gates.

This is why I'm always delighted when real authors who have published several books write about their writing income honestly. Jim C. Hines has been doing this for several years now, and you can find his most recent post here. Kameron Hurley has very recently done something similar on her blog.

It's very interesting, and it can be quite sobering. I know, from my own experience, that you don't write a book for the money. You write it because you want to write it, and when it's published and you get some royalties from it, that's a reason for happiness, and getting some money is a good reason to find a publisher - but it will usually not turn out enough money to let you make a living, even if you are writing full-time.

That's a bit like knitting, actually. Most of us knit because they want to knit, or because they like the finished thing that they make themselves, or because there's no other way to get that special thing they have in mind... but if you just want socks or a sweater, it's usually cheaper to just buy them. (Never mind easier and quicker, too.) Most writers just like to write.

And without that, our world would be a little poorer.

Just in case you have wondered about the late blog posts recently - it's not that I have lost my interest in blogging, or that I have un-learned how to read a clock. It's more or less directly due to the joys of working together with someone on the other side of the planet, and my changed daily schedule.

There's this book project, you see (and I actually don't know how much I have already told about it in this blog, though I think it's not much).  It's a joint project with Gillian, who has instigated it and brought heaps and heaps of words (the bulk of all the book, in fact). Gillian is a historian who happens to live in Australia... and that means our working together has to be timed carefully. That usually ends up being my morning to noon, sometimes early afternoon, and her arvo (the Aussie afternoon) to evening and night. There's only so much you can do in these sessions, and recently, we've had some more and some longer ones, as we're working towards meeting our deadline for publication.

Since this project is going to eat up some more of my premium morning hours, and I suspect things will go more crazy in the next two to three weeks instead of less crazy, you will know just what is up when the blogpost goes up later than usual. (Including, like today, much later than usual.)

And just in case you are interested in the process: at the moment, we're taking one last joint read through the manuscript to get rid of the last bits that need checking, editing, or otherwise modifying. Gillian has started doing the final detailed proofing on the printout, and I will join her very soon in that. A few people have a draft of the manuscript to have a look at it and will hopefully give us some feedback; meanwhile, we're also sourcing good illustrations to go with the text, because sometime a picture is better than words. Getting a book finished is pure craziness... but a weirdly nice, good kind of total craziness.