The humidity is about 90 percent. The sky is overcast with gray clouds. It's currently about 80 degrees. I'm hoping it will rain and cut through some of this oppression. I feel draggy.
The final edit of MBDD continues. I'm slogging through it. I hope to be able to upload the book to Lulu this weekend. We'll see how many corrections, edits, and changes I do. It may need another read-through. Sigh. Hey, are there any of my readers who wield a sharp editing pencil? Besides those of you who have already been drafted into proofing the dang thing. I happen to know that one of my fairly regular readers has a good eye for that sort of thing, but I'm too embarrassed to ask her since I don't know her in RL. I'll just put this here and hope that she's willing and will volunteer ... Could I hint any louder? Without saying her name?
I need to do laundry, clean house, wash dishes, water my plants and flowers, pay bills, edit the book, restart my family newsletter, eat all my meals and snacks as per the diabetic diet, dust and vacuum the house, file, file, file, blog daily (something I've been slipping on and I apologize, but the diabetes meds seem to take all my get-up-and-go or maybe I'm lazy. No, it's the meds!) read and comment on my blogs of interest, work on the local theater group's patron drive (doing a little a day on it keeps it from being so overwhelming), finish the back cover of the book and try to figure out a way to add a drop of blood on the knife as per Kent's and Roen's suggestions, work on Twilight, relaunch Darkness, Oklahoma, and so on. My list is long and the spirit is willing, but my body wants a vacation. And it wants it now.
I got Rain's prizes from the June 2007 Giveaway ready to mail last night. She emailed me her snail mail address along with a lovely note of appreciation and support. Thanks, Rain! I'm not sure what the July Giveaway will be. I'm leaning toward the scripts for "Murder at the Witch's Cottage" and "Turnabout," but it might be something related to MBDD if the book comes out that month, which I'm hoping it will.
I had thought the July Giveaway might be some Holly Lisle books. Holly recently had a "Book Giveaway" on her site in which you paid shipping and handling and received a bunch of her books, but she had overwhelming response and ran out of boxes. So that's on hold for the time being. Maybe in August if I'm lucky enough to get a box of her books -- that I don't have, of course.
I'd like to introduce more of you to Holly's books. She's a fine wordsmith. Her books feature well drawn characters and intelligent, surprising plots. That's rare in this day and age. Holly founded the Forward Motion writing site, and while I don't participate there much anymore -- not because there's anything wrong with the site, but I made the dismaying discovery that I was quite willing to talk about writing rather than actually writing -- I appreciate the effort and work that went into its creation. Holly has given up the reins of Forward Motion, but she still drops by there sometimes.
Besides her amazing fiction, Holly has produced a series of writing books, also using Lulu. These are loaded with great advice and sensible, concrete suggestions and methods of improving your fiction writing skills. You can find them at Lulu.com or at Holly's site as an ebook. If you want to write, you owe it to yourself and your future career to read them at least once.
And that concludes our advertising portion of the blog. Thank you for your attention.
Commas have always confused me. In editing Murder by Dewey Decimal, that fact was brought anew to my attention. I have the basic rules down, I think, but fumble frequently when things get complicated. Here's a question for you: Would it be correct to write "Now, back to our show" or should it be "Now back to our show"? What do you think?
I wish I could go back to bed now, but unfortunately I have to get ready for work. Sigh. Why is it that I can't sleep at night, but come morning, I'm ready to go to bed? There's something wrong in that.
And now I have to go. Have a great day. Or not depending on what you prefer. It's all about making you happy, you know.
3 comments:
lol I am NO expert, but, I would think you could say it two ways why not be able to write two ways.Use a comma if you wanted a pause, or not if you said it in one breath. Ok don't listen to me on one else does and looking at my puncutation/spelling/word useage/ I know why.
where is the drop of blood going? If it is off the end, make it black like the knife? but you could try it on the blade dripping down from the hilt in red (like a cut out)
Roen
Roen has great suggestions for the drop of blood! I think I lean more towards the dripping one. =:o
I think "Now, back to our show." I totally understand the "issue" of commas. While proofing for you I'd put a question mark on the comment of "comma needed?" or "comma not needed?" when I wasn't sure. Sometimes it's simply just how you mean to say something.
At least you're not like my mother who can write a run-on sentence like nobody's business because she never takes a breath on paper when trying to make her point so you'll understand it more clearly just in case you were tired when you read it and couldn't get it. ;)
She also refrains from the use of periods a lot. :)
It's probably just one drop on the knife on the back cover, Roen. That seems to the limit of my Photoshop Elements ability!
FF, I originally had "Now, back to our show." But I was curious how it looked without the comma. I mostly use commas based on how things look. If I start second-guessing, then I have to stop and try to look up an usage.
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