I ordered the first printed copy the world will ever see of The Footsteps of Cain, yesterday! It's still not the FINAL version, but I wanted to check the formatting to make sure everything looks ship...er...book-shape. I probably didn't need to, as there will be a few more corrections/revisions that I'll do before I declare it “My Super Almighty, Magical First Edition”, but I'm impulsive and I'm an adult and I can do what I want to, so nyah. I just wanted to hold it in my hands and maybe glue some faux fur to it and sleep with it like a teddy bear, all of which being perfectly natural and healthy impulses. YES, they ARE.
I also wanted to read it (AGAIN) in a physical format, to see if I could catch any more sneaky typos or mechanical issues. I hate those things. It's a helpless feeling, knowing that one's own brain can so easily betray oneself. My brain's all, “Hey, maybe I'll make that pinky finger there spasm a bit and hit the 'A' key instead of the 'Q' key, and completely wipe it from your memory”, or “Hey, maybe I'll make you type that word two times in a row...that would be funny”, or “Hey, I'm a jerk and maybe I'll sprinkle some obvious misspellings in there so everybody will think you're a stupid idiot”. Nothing good can come from this feud, and sadly it appears there won't be a truce between me and my brain anytime soon.
See, it doesn't matter how good your story is...how perfectly you've crafted the narrative or the hours you've slaved away, ironing out all the problems. If a reader finds one that got through, many of them will take that 10 they were about to give your book in their heads and downgrade it to a 9. (That's assuming they were going to give the book a 10 in the first place, which of course in my case is totally a reality...am I right guys? AM I RIGHT?? PLEASE LOVE ME!!)
If I had an editor take a look, I could be better convinced that everything was taken care of, but I don't have the scratch to hire one for this first effort. Maybe for the second, I'll get lucky and find a 6 year old grammarian savant who will do it for a handful of Shopkins. If you don't know what Shopkins are, then you don't have a child, currently, or a secret stash of them in the back or your closet that you would never tell your spouse about. For the latter...you know who you are, and so do I.
(Know, that is, not play with Shopkins in the back of my closet where I keep them in a shoe-box. (What shoe-box?! Nobody said “shoe-box”! You must be hearing and also seeing things.))
I'm also faced with an impending summer that probably won't be gracious enough to give me much writing time. I'll have to make all that day-dreaming count so I'm all set to go with ideas, here come August, when I will again ship my kid into the hands of other, more capable adults who will teach her things like division and multiplication and how to kill a person with only her thumbs. (No, not seriously, even though you KNOW she'd be the cutest little bodyguard!)
Man, I'm all about the parentheses today. (Darn tootin'.)
Back to work.
I also wanted to read it (AGAIN) in a physical format, to see if I could catch any more sneaky typos or mechanical issues. I hate those things. It's a helpless feeling, knowing that one's own brain can so easily betray oneself. My brain's all, “Hey, maybe I'll make that pinky finger there spasm a bit and hit the 'A' key instead of the 'Q' key, and completely wipe it from your memory”, or “Hey, maybe I'll make you type that word two times in a row...that would be funny”, or “Hey, I'm a jerk and maybe I'll sprinkle some obvious misspellings in there so everybody will think you're a stupid idiot”. Nothing good can come from this feud, and sadly it appears there won't be a truce between me and my brain anytime soon.
See, it doesn't matter how good your story is...how perfectly you've crafted the narrative or the hours you've slaved away, ironing out all the problems. If a reader finds one that got through, many of them will take that 10 they were about to give your book in their heads and downgrade it to a 9. (That's assuming they were going to give the book a 10 in the first place, which of course in my case is totally a reality...am I right guys? AM I RIGHT?? PLEASE LOVE ME!!)
If I had an editor take a look, I could be better convinced that everything was taken care of, but I don't have the scratch to hire one for this first effort. Maybe for the second, I'll get lucky and find a 6 year old grammarian savant who will do it for a handful of Shopkins. If you don't know what Shopkins are, then you don't have a child, currently, or a secret stash of them in the back or your closet that you would never tell your spouse about. For the latter...you know who you are, and so do I.
(Know, that is, not play with Shopkins in the back of my closet where I keep them in a shoe-box. (What shoe-box?! Nobody said “shoe-box”! You must be hearing and also seeing things.))
I'm also faced with an impending summer that probably won't be gracious enough to give me much writing time. I'll have to make all that day-dreaming count so I'm all set to go with ideas, here come August, when I will again ship my kid into the hands of other, more capable adults who will teach her things like division and multiplication and how to kill a person with only her thumbs. (No, not seriously, even though you KNOW she'd be the cutest little bodyguard!)
Man, I'm all about the parentheses today. (Darn tootin'.)
Back to work.
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