What? Galactica—again? Yes, this time I had the page proofs for the mass market paperback edition to correct. (We won’t mention that the proofs were mailed by mistake to Craig Gardner, who wrote the second book, and who fortunately lives just a few blocks away.) This meant reading through the book again—actually, for the first time since I corrected the proofs for the trade edition. Why should I have to do this? you might ask. Well, partly because the typesetting has been adjusted for the smaller page size, and sometimes errors are introduced when that’s done. But mainly it’s to catch all the stupid mistakes we missed the first time around. Yes, it’s true.
I know this makes it sound like we’re careless when the first edition goes out, but that’s not true. It’s amazing how many errors can sneak by multiple proofreaders (including yours truly), who are all doing their best to catch the little buggers. And then there are the occasional infelicitous phrasings or word choices that any one of said proofreaders (including yours truly) should have caught—but didn’t. Things like the phrase “for a moment” appearing three times in a paragraph. Yeesh.
So it’s done. And you know what? I really liked reading the book. I consider this a positive sign.
Oh—the wrestling. Alexandra placed third in the Ohio state girls tournament in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. It wasn’t a huge field. But lemme tell you, some of those girls who are wrestling in Ohio are tough hombres! (You should forgive the expression.) I’ll try to snag a few stills off the video we shot and get them up soon.
With my sister Nancy as tour guide, we also visited the campus of Kenyon College, which is right down the road from where the tourney was held. We admired their fantastic new athletic Taj Mahal, and sought out advice and info from fellow SF author/biology professor Joan Slonczewski.
We arrived home, well after midnight on Sunday night, exhausted but happy—greeted by wife and other daughter, and dinner laid out on the table! Who could ask for more?
tsmacro
Yes you just never know where those mistakes might pop up huh? *L* Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip back to the midwest and congrats to your daughter on the third place finish!
Jeffrey A. Carver
Thanks, Marco.
substandardTim
i saw a copy of bsg in a book store today. didn’t buy it though. I’ve got too many other things sitting at home that i need to finish read and not enough pennies in my pockets.
it will make its way into my collection eventually though.
Jeffrey A. Carver
Well, good to know that it was in your store, anyway. 🙂