editors

HYPHEN-MANIA | Or, How I Got B-Slapped* by My Copyeditor

Posted on by lalber
Image
(source: grammarpartyblog.com)

(*where “b-slapped” is a hyphen-manic word such that “b” stands in for the witch-rhyming word.)

After last week’s post, I promised I’d write something lighthearted this week. What could be better than hyphens? Those slivers of punctuationary (yes, I just made up an adjective) yumminess that allow for all manner of over-the-top compound modifiers, not to mention nouns you’d never find in the dictionary–(that’s supposed to be an em-dash, NOT, no-way-ever, a hyphen) like hyphen-mania, which as you might have guessed, is not to be mistaken for hyphen-phobia.

I used to think that I was a semi-colon* person, and secondarily, an em-dash (should that hyphen be there? I like the looks of it, so yes) person. I knew I had an issue with semi-colons when a friend informed me that using semi-colons within dialogue quotes was idiotic. “We don’t talk in semi-colon; just use a period,” he said.

Frankly, I thought what he’d said was a wonderfully semi-colon-ish (aaah, there are my pretty hyphens) set of statements. Talk about being in denial. After a sweat-soaked internal struggle, I gripped my mouse and fixed the dialogue before sending the manuscript to the copyeditor. I use em-dashes semi-correctly, so I thought I was safe.

But no! I have a hidden addiction. An insidious-sneaky-little-devil of an affliction. You inject a hyphen once, and before you know, you’re injecting them anywhere at anytime, leaving a swath of overwrought-and-trying-too-hard phrases behind you.

I had to accept my problem, face it head-on (kind-of), and accept my copyeditor’s sponsorship. Not that I don’t relapse, of course, but with her around, I hope to present many a hyphen-happy novel to the world…(Ellipses are good. I like ellipses, too, but I tend to avoid them in my fiction.)

To that end, Ms. Copyedit-trix, she b-slapped me from page 1 to page 369. Here are a few of the many ways I succumbed to my addiction: (Hi, Colon, didn’t want to ignore you!)

Adjectives

hen-pecked –> should be –> henpecked
mid-air —-> midair
wolf-like —-> wolflike
under-lit —-> underlit
old-world —-> Old World

Nouns

bog-hole —-> bog hole
web-porn —-> web porn
sofa-bed —-> sofa bed
line-up —-> lineup
screw-up —-> screwup
half-mile —-> half mile

yet: hardass —-> hard-ass (my kind of word, hugs to you, Hyphen!)

Verbs

re-shingle —-> reshingle
over-think —-> overthink

Even Interjections!

ah-ha —-> aha

Adverbs?

Thankfully, no. Throw me out of the writing tribe if I ever use a hyphen after an -ly adverb. Even I know better than to write that kind of badly–written badly written prose.

What about you, any punctuation addictions you’re ready to confess?

—

*Mmm-hmm, don’t you be yanking out my hyphen!

A Little Sanity

Posted on by lalber
Weekend writing spot: Laptop, dog, beans and rice, what could be better?
Weekend writing spot: Laptop, dog, beans and rice, what could be better?

I think, but I’m not sure, that I started off this week a million times more sane than last week. Don’t get me wrong, at various points over the weekend stress nipped at me, reminding me of its existence while I went about my business trying to have a weekend away from the work.

That was my main goal for weekend — SAY “NO” TO WORK — because I needed, wanted, had to work on short story edits. This story will be published in an anthology, and I’ve been sitting on the editor’s notes for weeks, closer to two months. I’ve longed for the brainspace to sit down with the story and clean it up. But until this past weekend, I was out of my mind.

This weekend I was only a little out of my mind. In fact, I’d say SAYING “NO” TO WORK and forcing myself to ignore the stressed heart-thumps and chest pressures did me a world of good. I feel better for having time with my fiction.

(Unfortunately, I did work over the weekend, but just a little on Saturday morning and last night. Mostly, I had my weekend.)

In fact, the anthology’s editor called me Saturday morning. I rushed to assure her that the short story was open on the monitor. Apparently, she wasn’t concerned about the edits though. She was concerned that given my fragile state of late, I’d take this blog post the wrong way.

I had to laugh when I read the post, and I’m looking forward to hearing her rude-writer tales. You’ll also see my comment. Rest assured, I’m not one of the unprofessional writers she was talking about. Why? Because I communicated with her along the way — and I know how to format a bloody manuscript! (Aspiring writers: heed her post.)

She’s smart. She suggested that I might feel better if I left my apartment for a real lunch hour. That seems obvious (so why hadn’t I thought of it?). I didn’t try this today; instead, I clowned around outside with plants, a neighbor, and my dog. That counts for a lunch hour though.

And it helped!

You know what else helped? Instead of stumbling straight from bed to drowning in work-muck without coffee (much less breakfast) until hours later, I took thirty minutes to shower, say a quality “hello” to the animals, fix coffee, dress in real clothes, and step out onto the deck for a few quality inhalations.

I can’t remember the last time I showered in the morning. Usually, I get it in whenever, which is often right before bed. Amazing what a difference that makes…sigh…

I’M SAD | My Manuscript Didn’t Find a Home

Posted on by lalber

When I received the message from my agent last night, I knew I wouldn’t be in for good news this morning. She wanted to touch base to let me know where we are with submissions.

Where are we? Nowhere. Thirty seven — count them, three tens and a seven — editor rejections. My agent has come to the end of her efforts with this novel. And I can now add 37 more rejections to the long list I’ve racked up.

This is irrational (what else would I be at this point?), but I feel like I have to start from scratch now, that the past decade’s worth of work meant nothing, that I have to re-think my way of writing novels. Or something. I know this is a lot of baloney, but this is how I feel.

Worse yet, I feel like the past year’s work on the current first draft has been a huge waste of time. I feel like since the editors didn’t vibe with the previous novel (even though they agree that I can write), they won’t like this one either because it’s the same style with similar themes, pacing, and etcetera etcetera etcetera blah blah blah fooey.

Frankly, I’m disappointed by the editors’ short-sightedness. So my novel doesn’t fit all the formulas, so what?

I’ll get up tomorrow; I’ll write; I’ll finish the current first draft even if it feels like a waste of time, because it will bug me if I don’t, and I’m just about done anyhow. Then, I’ll read through a previous novel that’s been sitting around in revised form for years, and I’ll send it to my agent because she’s still my agent, after all, and she’s interested in reading whatever I have to send her.

I like my agent, that much I can say. I’m not pleased with editors at the moment, but I like my agent.

But still…I feel like I’m starting from ground zero and it will be a few days before that bummeriness (not a word, I know, but I don’t care) filters out of my system. Oh, I don’t know. I’m rambling, and I’m not going to edit this post for coherency like I usually do. My manuscript deserves publication, and that’s my final word on the matter, full stop.

Now I’ll have dessert for dinner, watch some asinine show on the telly, and read until as late as I like.