Certainly a Goal

Spent the last few days listening to my computer read a book I’d written, following along in the text while looking for holes, typos, and inconsistencies. It’s a good way to proof. I also can’t get over the fact that I can write something and have a computer read it to me.

We live in the damn future. The only thing missing is the flying skateboards, and though everyone knows how much I love the concept, the technology would probably cause more problems than it ever dreamt of solving.

Of course the book is full of neologisms and strange character names, so each time one was mispronounced I was either amused or irritated to some degree. But that’s a small price to pay for the ease with which this type of proofing allows me to see typos and homonyms and and and. Spending my days staring at words on a screen means sometimes I read what I meant to write instead of what’s actually there, so one has to almost trick one’s brain with novelty or discomfort in order to find errors.

Anyway, now I’m hopeful that damn book will leave me alone for a while, since due to other moving parts, the rest of the production timeline is now entirely out of my hands. Of course the remaining pieces will all fall in a row at the most inconvenient moment, probably when I’m head-down in another thorny revision, but that’s the way it goes.

If a book ever passes smoothly through the production process with no hassles whatsoever, I’ll probably get nervous and pull the plug, sensing a disaster looming after release. Problems solved before mean fewer problems after, or something like that.

In any case, I have a second jolt of coffee to balance out the fatigue from today’s run. I know I’ll have more energy in the afternoon; morning exercise does that. I just have to get through the valley of my body whimpering why on earth did you do that to me, let’s go back to bed or at least have lunch. I also tossed a Caprese salad down the hatch, so that will give me some strength for post-meridian revisions.

How in the hell did it get to be Thursday? Oh, right–a Monday off and a few days living in an alternate universe will do that to you. I suppose I should stop poking at this blog post and get my legs under me.

So to speak. I keep saying I do have a backyard story to tell my best beloveds, but it’ll have to wait until next week or so. You’ll like it, though, it’s a real corker.

Onward, upward, excelsior, and all that. Friday can’t come soon enough–as long as I can get some damn work done today, that is.

All signs point to “well, that’s certainly a goal, but whether or not we can get there is an open question…”