Just shy of the last chapter, Merlin decided to help out and put some of his writing cat energy into the manuscript. I caught him here mid-yawn.
You know that sentence with "only" from a few days ago? *facepalm* I don't think I read that sentence right or something--this is perhaps why I shouldn't do this when tired--because the CE moved only, didn't delete it. Um. My bad. Well, that's why we do more than one pass. Or more than two. Maybe more than three, if I have time.
Here's what the thing looked like after putting a flag on everything I decided I couldn't just stet/not stet at a glance, and might need to look up or justify or ponder or give some time to surrendering:
In related news, I need to go look at the Historical Thesaurus of the OED tomorrow to find out if there's something more in period for bedsore and slagging. I find it hard to believe that pressure ulcers (i.e., bedsores) were an unknown problem until Florence Nightingale, and I likewise need a good word for slagging that wasn't born in the same decade as me and so darn British that it will confuse my American readers. (Wise thoughts on both these words welcome, O friendslist.)
Comments
Actually, my book had an in-house copyeditor and a freelance one, and they have both won my trust, admiration, and undying gratitude.
That said, there are points where the absolutely correct thing to do impedes the thing I was trying to achieve. Fiction is so different from non-fiction. I don't, for example, want perfect diction from my uneducated servant class.
Edited at 2010-11-15 02:47 am (UTC)
Plus, some things are issues of style, and that's always worth arguing about. ;)
And its utterly and totally different than any short fiction galley I've ever seen--so much more to keep track of!--and I'm ecstatic that there's this much attention being paid to details I rather thoughtlessly glossed over. It's not all stet/not, either--there's a lot of things like, "You did X on page 24 and 62, but Y on 95 and 129, so which way do you want to address royalty?"