Did you guys know that printed books should always be odd-numbered on the right page? Or that text should be right and left justified? Or, for a matter of fact, that when you shorten the front of a word with an apostrophe (ex. ‘leave ’em alone’) that the apostrophe must face the same way as one that shortens the end of a word (ex. ‘doin’ what comes naturally’).
I didn’t until I started self-publishing. Got any idea how long it takes to go over 300-odd pages of text, looking at every flamin’ apostrophe? Oh yeah, and MS Word just puts ’em through as regular apostrophes. You gotta think about every shortened word as you type it. (Well, there’s probably a function I can turn on somewhere in the recesses of the program, but beggared if I know where it is.)
Also on today’s housekeeping: both Masque and A Time-Traveller’s Best Friend: Volume One are on a Goodreads giveaway at the moment, until about mid-April. I’ve got three signed copies of each to give away, so if you’re interested, click through the link on either above, and enter to win. A handy little feature of Goodreads that I found out about just a few days ago, and that I’m very happy to make use of!
And as I announced on my Facebook and Twitter pages, Wolfskin is at present being sent out to bloggers and reviewers. If you’re interested in getting a free copy (either ecopy or paperback) for the purposes of a review, contact me at gingellwrites [AT] gmail.com, through the comment section, or from the form on my Contact page.
Fourthly and lastly, I’ve been bingewatching On The Up with the wonderful Dennis Waterman, delightful Sam Kelly, inimitable Joan Sims, and pot-stirring Jenna Russell. SO MUCH FUN. So many glorious one-liners. And I’m completely in love with the ending.
Well, that and the equally wonderful live-action version of Black Butler. I’ve watched it three times now. It’s become one of my all-time favourites along with Alice (mini-series version with Andrew-Lee Potts), The Fall (Lee Pace), and City of the Lost Children (Ron Perlman).
Seriously. Watch any of these.
Over and out.
(What? You didn’t think my housekeeping would include actual work, did you? Well, apart from all the apostrophes.)
Typesetting is one of my favorite things in the world. I think it’s because of all the tiny details like apostrophes and margins and justification. Widow and orphan control is the best–and the worst, haha. (Yes, I do question my sanity on occasion.)
There’s no way, to my knowledge, to get Word (or any other program) not to assume that your word-starting apostrophe is actually a single open quote mark, unless you turn off the smart quotes all together (which creates a headache on its own). I try to correct it in the drafting stage. I guess one could program any common apostrophe-starting words into the auto-correct function, but I don’t use enough of them to go to that trouble.
PS – I read Masque about a month ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was such an entertaining fusion of fairy tale, fantasy, and murder mystery. I’ve gone back and reread my favorite passages multiple times. Your narrative voice is brilliant. 😀
You’ll have to excuse me while I take a moment to shriek delightedly to myself. You’ve been one of my favourite authors ever since I came across ‘A Rumor of Real Irish Tea’ (though ‘Goldmayne’ is my favourite so far) so this is possibly the loveliest compliment I’ve yet received! 🙂
To get back on subject: now that I know about the right way to do apostrophes in contractions, I simply do them as I write. It’s fresh in my mind, so I don’t tend to forget. As far as typesetting goes, I’m still very, VERY new at it. I feel intense satisfaction when I finish up, though sometimes it feels like a bit of a slog while I’m doing it. I’m just a little obsessive-compulsive, so I do actually enjoy the work: we’ll see how I feel about it after my fifth or sixth novel 😀
And then you get into the Australian/American differences in spelling such as recognise/recognize etc . . .
Saw your link on The Shark’s blog, and thought I’d stop by and say hello!
Hi! Pleased to ‘meet’ you! 🙂
I’m dropping by from the reef, also. Nice to meet you! Wow, there’s a lot I don’t know about typesetting. It’s a whole new world.
Love your covers.
Nice to meet you, too, SP 🙂 Thanks for visiting!
I’m still very much learning as I go with typesetting: it’s very interesting, and very frustrating.
Glad you like my covers- I love ’em too 😀 A very talented lady called Joleene Naylor does them 🙂
Another Aussie on QOTKU blog! I had never picked up that the right page is always an odd number before. Another really good reason for me to not SP – or to pay for an editor 🙂
G’day 😀
Yeah, that was something I learned off somebody else’s blog. I learn HEAPS from other writers’ blogs. I’m a lurker of the lurkiest 😀
Hopping over from the Reef. Nice insight on typsetting and contracting. Great for dialog.
Thanks 🙂 Nice to meet you!