“Dude, like, is that credit card terminal on your desk?” To be a little more precise, it’s not, “like a credit card terminal” – it is one. Hand me your card, I’ll swipe it through, and we can take care of that $17 you owe me. Dude.
“Oh baby you’re right, I’m wrong, I’m sorry, I love you.” Gratuitous Leo note.
Lord, I haven’t typeset – typed in years. I keep forgeting the “Option-Shift-Hooky-Control” monkey grip required for curly quotes. From word processor to text editor to web layout, and then, back again. I used to do this crap for a living, back in the day. Typing for dollars.
Getting the damn manuscript ready is just like that. Plus I’m racing the Mercurial clock, too. Always feels like a Dali painting, the one with melting clock faces. My mouse hand – left hand track ball – is starting to cramp up. I’ve paged through almost 200 pages and played with fickle MS Word setting, finally deciding to do certain tasks by hand, like the simple Table of Contents. Sure, the software can do it, but then I lose some formating, or I have to take seventeen extra steps. 23 extra steps, or just type pages numbers 12 times?
In typesetting terms, a “widow” is a single line from a previous page/chapter that sits all alone at the top of an otherwise blank page. I keep messing with minute magin issues, trying to get that last widow under control. Then repaginate.
It’s 144 entries, plus some new – or old – material to help flesh out definitions of signs. Price point is bothersome for me, I figure a trade paperback like this is worth $9.95, but this first run, first edition? It’s going to be priced at – I’m guessing – $17 even. This vanity, print-on-demand thing is costly, but since no regular publisher has picked it up, and I have assurances that at least 5 people will buy the damn thing, it’s worth a try. Plus it’s an excellent training ground for myself.
But the next time I think about self-publishing, I’m looking for some red-hot pokers to play with first.
The first design started out nice and slightly exotic with a great idea for artwork and an artist to do the work. But each page costs money and 12 pages of illustrations bump the price an extra buck. I’ve got one too many widows as it is. Plus that pesky Word setting, which is supposed to control those widows, doesn’t want to comply.
Damn computers.
My afternoon respite was a pair of engaging Gemini girls and BBQ just down the road. Stopped off for a little Jo’s coffee, and then, the next break was “bat time” as I sat outside and puffed on a recent acquisition, a Monte Cristo Corona. Sadly, it was not Cuban, and sadly, it’s just not quite as good.
The cat retired with me in the summer’s eve’s air, lounging. She’s taken to complaining about, and moving like it hurts to move. But after careful observation, this is strictly theatrical. You know, doing the “oh woe is me, Mars is really screwing up my day” kind of a walk. I opened a pop-top can of fruit and she moved pretty fast, obviously thinking it was food.
There’s something to be said for sitting and watching the river run by, too. The bats are spectacular at this time of year, height of the mating and baby-bat-making season, wave after wave of them flying off, heading away from the sunset.