Well, dear readers, what a difference a proof makes. I’d already proofed Welcome to My World online and thought it looked fine, but because they recommended I get a hard copy to check out the cover and back cover, I did so. It arrived yesterday and it was illuminating seeing it. When I work with Grant and he designs the interior of my books, I see it in the real size and know exactly what it’s going to look like. With CreateSpace (my first time using it), when they send you the Word template that has their formatting, it’s smaller than the actual book. When I did all my work, the type seemed very small so I made it bigger, fourteen point Garamond. It looked really good on the computer. Once I opened the hard copy I knew it was terrible – the type was simply too big and silly looking. Additionally, the lyrics (which are all in caps) had these huge spaces between each line – I’d tried to fix it any number of ways and simply couldn’t figure it out. But it looked ridiculous in the hard copy. So, I spent almost all of my day and all of my evening redoing the interior because, as you dear readers know, I don’t like things to be amateurish in any way, and this just was. I could have gone with it and no one would probably have minded, but I can’t operate that way.
I began by doing a “save as” alternate version, just to play with stuff. The first thing I did was take the fourteen point Garamond down to twelve point and that looked so much better. So I highlighted the entire text and that immediately brought the ninety pages down to seventy-nine. I then went back to the beginning and made sure everything lined up as it should. Most of it did, but I had to move a few things up and down. Then I wrote a Notes from the Author – basically talking about the way we did the show, how we solved certain problems, and just some friendly advice – that brought the page count back up to eighty-one. I then sent Doug Haverty a copy and he tried to fix the spacing problem on the lyrics, but he couldn’t figure it out no matter what he did. He then had to go to a rehearsal. But I was determined. He told me what he’d done to try and fix it, so I went to that pull down menu for line spacing – then clicked on the more options part. That gave me a new screen and just looking at two sets of numbers gave me the idea of how to fix it. I did a test – highlighted a page of lyrics, changed one number out of the two numbers listed there, and clicked single space. Then I hit “okay” and voila – the spacing was fixed. But I didn’t want single spacing – I wanted the same spacing the dialogue has, which looks great. That is 1.15, so I kept the fixed text highlighted and clicked on 1.15 in the main menu and voila – perfection. I was so happy. I then went through the entire script and fixed all the spacing on the lyrics. And dropped another eleven pages, down to sixty-nine. Also, there was a spacing problem anytime I used a character direction (as opposed to a stage direction) – you know, where there’s a parens underneath the character name or within a character speech – always things like “smiles” or “emotionally.” I didn’t have a lot of that, but there was always an extra space there and it just looked completely weird. I applied the same trick to those and it fixed them all.
Another thing that bugged me in the hard copy was the right side of the text was ragged. All professional books are justified on the right so that all the ends of lines are even rather than ragged. It took but ten seconds to find the icon to fix that, and again I went through the entire script and fixed all the dialogue, as well as the stage directions, and boy did that make everything look swell. In the hard copy, the two color photos I’d included looked really good and I felt there should be more, especially as we’d lost so many pages. So, in the hard copy the two photos were on a right hand page. Instead, I made a double truck and did two photos on the left, two photos on the right, and that looked great. Then about eight pages later, I did the same thing with four more photos. I recaptioned them and that was that. I sent it back to Doug who was very impressed I’d figured all of that out. Then I proofed again, found just a couple of nitpicky things, I reformatted the title page making the type a bit smaller, the dedication page (it was too low in the hard copy – now it’s above center, where it should be), and added to credits to the page that has the original production information. After giving it another once-over, I submitted the new interior and will get an online copy to proof. This time I don’t need a hard copy to proof and will just approve instantly.
Earlier, I’d gotten about eight hours of sleep, then got up and did some work at the piano and on the computer, chose our final song, and then moseyed on over to our local Thai jernt, Talesai, for a lunch with our very own Nick Redman, his Darling Daughter Rebecca (who’s about to try living in New York), and Nick’s ever-lovin’ Julie Kirgo. It was a really fun lunch – almost two hours long. I had a little Thai salad and the cashew chicken – their portions are on the small side, so it was just right.
After that, I picked up the proof and came home and thus began the long fixing session. I did take a break and made the remainder of the leftover noodles I had – about six ounces – so a nice portion of Wacky Noodles. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a DGA screener of Joy, a motion picture about the lady who invented the miracle mop. It’s directed and written by David O. Russell, who is not one of my favorites. It stars Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Virginia Madsen, and Diane Ladd. I found some of it enjoyable, but it’s very choppy and stylistically weird at times. It never seems to know what kind of movie it wants to be. I’m not sure it quite deserves some of the really bad reviews it’s gotten, but it’s just to erratic in tone and I don’t think audiences are going to take to it. The actors are all fine, I guess, but there’s just something missing.
Then I went back to working on the new version of the interior and that was that.
Today I have a lunch with dear reader Jeanne, sometime between 12:30 and 1:00 – I have it written down somewhere. I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, then I’ll just relax and maybe figure out a show order.
Tomorrow I’m doin’ nothin’ but attending our annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Bash right here at haineshisway.com. It’s always a great partay, so please spend your New Year’s Eve with us having merriment and mirth and laughter and legs. On New Year’s Day I begin writing a new novel, and then I have a partay at Barry Pearl’s house. The weekend is pretty open, and then we begin with a very busy week.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a lunch, hopefully pick up packages, figure out a show order, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have fixed the interior of Welcome to My World and now the proof is in the proof.