Up to my elbows and beyond

Sorry I haven't been here. Been up to my elbows and beyond in finishing Floozy and Other Stories. Inputting errors, fixing margins, and so on. I still have those final (I hope) changes in the back cover to do. I had hoped to transmit last night. Didn't happen. Probably won't be able to transmit until late tonight or tomorrow night. Very frustrating.

It's a clearer, sharper book for this work, but line editing is detestable. I hate doing it. Line editing? Oh, that's editing the book line by line. My procedure -- learned years ago at Oklahoma State University and taught by the formidable Dr. Steng -- is to read the whole chapter first for the sense of it. Then read the first sentence word by word. Fix any obvious errors. Read sentence again to see if you've introduced any new errors while making changes. Read the next sentence to make sure they flow together. If okay, move on to second sentence. Repeat process, except for all the following sentences, read both the one before and after. And so on and so on and so on UNTIL YOUR EYES BLEED AND YOU FEEL YOUR SOUL SCREAM! Ahem.

It's quite slow, and I'm not that good at it because I get bored quickly. However, it's amazing what mistakes you will find in a sentence that you thought was perfectly good on first read. I sure appreciate my proofreaders catching so many errors before I started this. Otherwise, I'd never get done.

Floozy will really be finished when I can't stand to look at her anymore. That's usually how it goes with me. I'd fiddle forever with a poem, story, book, but eventually I can't stand it anymore, and so off it goes.

I'm inclined to be obsessive -- yeah, I know that's (not) a surprise to many of you -- but I try to remember this: 'Perfect is the enemy of progress.' If I hold onto the book forever trying to catch every single error, I won't write anything new. I have to do the best I can in the time I have and then move on.

Speaking of moving on, I have to get to work now. It's going to be a hot one here. Hope you stay cool and have a great day.


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