This one, I have no idea how it's going to go. I'm not dealing with books or the usual archives and only have a few photos that don't seem to cover everything that's being packed. Plus it's out in the middle of the English countryside, not far from the border with Wales, so no way I can order more supplies if I've underestimated or gotten the wrong sizes of box. But that 's half the adventure.
I'll be there a week with God only knows what kind of wifi access. And no time, really, for jaunting through London. Dammit. But what the heck; the farthest west I've been -- not counting taking the train from Holyhead to London off the Dublin Ferry, 12 years ago -- is Salisbury and Stonehenge. Should be interesting.
I've corrected the errors found by a couple of editors into my hard copy of The Alice '65. The story's still holding up, it seems. I also noted what ellipses and dashes I'd like to get rid of...which is a lot of them. Commas work just as well, as does making short sentences out of those bits. What's fun is how each editor found different mistakes. I'd say they both noted 80% of the same typos, then one caught a few that the other did not, and vise versa. And I found two that neither of them noticed, not to mention an inconsistency in one part of the story's details.
That's why I like getting as wide a response as possible. Makes it far more likely to catch everything. It's also interesting to get their different takes on punctuation. For example, one wants to remove as many commas as possible while the other despises semi-colons.
As regards commas, I do tend to be more old school about that. I use them for clarity, and while that can become a bit overly emphatic, it's not a killing point. Plus, I started learning grammar in England, so I may have the Oxford comma branded into my brain. I do know it took me years to get to where I didn't automatically spell "color" or "honor" with a "U", and I still sometimes say la-BOR-atory.
At least I'll be in a part of the world where no one will laugh at me for it, next week.
I'll be there a week with God only knows what kind of wifi access. And no time, really, for jaunting through London. Dammit. But what the heck; the farthest west I've been -- not counting taking the train from Holyhead to London off the Dublin Ferry, 12 years ago -- is Salisbury and Stonehenge. Should be interesting.
I've corrected the errors found by a couple of editors into my hard copy of The Alice '65. The story's still holding up, it seems. I also noted what ellipses and dashes I'd like to get rid of...which is a lot of them. Commas work just as well, as does making short sentences out of those bits. What's fun is how each editor found different mistakes. I'd say they both noted 80% of the same typos, then one caught a few that the other did not, and vise versa. And I found two that neither of them noticed, not to mention an inconsistency in one part of the story's details.
That's why I like getting as wide a response as possible. Makes it far more likely to catch everything. It's also interesting to get their different takes on punctuation. For example, one wants to remove as many commas as possible while the other despises semi-colons.
As regards commas, I do tend to be more old school about that. I use them for clarity, and while that can become a bit overly emphatic, it's not a killing point. Plus, I started learning grammar in England, so I may have the Oxford comma branded into my brain. I do know it took me years to get to where I didn't automatically spell "color" or "honor" with a "U", and I still sometimes say la-BOR-atory.
At least I'll be in a part of the world where no one will laugh at me for it, next week.
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