Fiddly? Dull? Welcome to My Typesetting World...

I think this is supposed to depict 
someone ogling porn. But it's also a
dramatic reconstruction of every
few seconds of my current life
as I spot irregularly spaced words
and the wrong font in the wrong place. 

The formatting of Assembling the Wingpeople's interior continues apace. Yes, I know you didn't ask, but I'm telling you anyway. It's fiddly, a bit dull, and just a little time consuming. But hey, that's my life right now. Happy Monday! Despite the painstaking nature of my current working day, it's not without its moments. In the monotony of making sure every word is spaced correctly, random thoughts occur. My latest realisation is how many times I use the word realise. It's everywhere. Littered through the text. Willy nilly. From characters realising they're hungry or tired, to bigger realisations surrounding life-changing decisions. I've used that word a lot. 

Just spotting all those realises.

Or course, it might not be a disproportionate amount in reality. It's hard to tell. The reason I know I've used realise a lot is that it's consistently underlined with a red zig zag. The kind that alerts me to a spelling mistake. As it's merely my American laptop being American, I can continue to ignore it and get on with my UK day. Still, that's why realise stands out as if I've overused it. I mean, I might have done. But equally, I might have overkilled on a completely different set of words. Ones that are spelt the same in both the UK and the US, so I don't get to see them isolated with a red line. The joys of editing. Hey ho.

I never realised (lolz) quite how many divergent spellings the US and the UK had, until I started writing properly. There are so many red lines in my almost perfect manuscript at the moment. There's the S/Z switcheroo as in recognise, organise and philosophise. Then there's the missing U in colour, humour and neighbour. I've googled all the double L words to check I've written signalled, travelled, and marvelled the UK way. And not forgetting the ER/RE in measurements. I've got kilometre, centre, and then - just to be obtuse - I've thrown in creepometer the US way. Creepometre looks wrong to this Brit's eyes. Don't know about you. 

It began years ago, but I'll
do my best to keep going.

If only it were that simple though. If my only spelling downfalls were US conventions creeping into my text, I'd have it sorted. Sadly my own ineptitude kicks in too. I have consistently spelt suppress incorrectly. I say consistently, it was probably used about three times in total. But each of those times I had written supress. I clocked the red line, worked out something was wrong, but assumed it was another Americanisation and left it. Reader, I was wrong! Suppress is all about the double Ps. My bad. I also, regularly and without exception, write breath when I mean breathe and breathe when I mean breath. Just do. Soz.

Technology has moved things on.
Slightly.

But it's not just spellings that I've been working on. There's a thing in typesetting called Widows and Orphans. It's an overly dramatic - in my opinion - way of describing one or two lines at the end of a chapter that finish at the top of a new page. When that happens, it looks bad. Plus, it wastes a page of paper, and every page counts when it comes to printing costs. So deleting one or two lines of the chapter is the best thing to do. Then the paragraph ends at the bottom of the page and doesn't drag over to a new one. Deleting a couple of lines is tricky though. I mean, sometimes it's easy when you're still riddled with cuttable waffle. But when your paragraphs are precise and perfect, it's killing your darlings and deleting literary gold. OK, that's more hyperbolic drama. It's not that bad, it's just a pain in the arse. But it's a pain in the arse I've had numerous times this week.

I need to get this done. It's dragging on. I've picked a front cover - it's an absolute beauty - and I want to be able to give Gary the Designer all the info he needs to crack on. One bit of info is the number of pages. Then Gary knows how wide the spine must be. Then he can put his beautiful cover onto the correct sized template. I can upload it, it can be pre-ordered, then come October it'll be sent through the post and you can read it and enjoy it and write fan fiction and Amazon reviews and everything. Oh my. The excitement. I need a lie down. 

For now, I'll keep on keeping on. I'll get to the end of this process eventually. And then I'll start all over again with the next book. Where I'll interchange breathe and breath once again, and forget how many Ps are in random words I can never remember. The circle of life, people. It's neverending.

Have a lovely week, folks.