Well, dear readers, I am bleary-eyed and vaguely discontented – bleary-eyed because I spent almost the entire day and evening proofing the audio book of Murder at the Magic Castle. I have the galley open and I just follow along and note mistakes as they occur, so it’s time consuming. Vaguely discontented because I’m so weary of Facebook stupidity and it is so rampant and so vile and I simply have to stop trying to take people on because these people simply lose any and all brainpower they have, they will not budge, they believe anything that’s posted without taking five seconds to Google and then double down on their stupidity. It is EXHAUSTING. I blocked eight people today for that very reason. That is why this here board is nirvana – we don’t do that, we don’t lose our God-given brains, and we actually retain our senses of humor. The world has turned into a sorry place – humorless, PC, everything is an outrage, everything is a thing, and I’m sick to death of it, truly. End of paragraph one rant and back to the proofing of the book.
My reader gets high marks for me. This isn’t easy and there are a lot of characters in the book. She’d send me a sample anytime a new character appeared, and I’d give her whatever notes I had. I’m not totally satisfied with a couple of the characters, but I don’t think I ever would be – it’s a lot to ask of one reader and while I could ask her to redo two of the characters, that would be a lot of work and they’re certainly not bad. But she’s a delightful Adriana and she reads the third person stuff very well. She also does well with the magicians. I’m basically very pleased. So, the mistakes are usually word omissions, wrong words, a few mispronunciations, and only a handful of interpretation things. I got up to chapter ten, which is well beyond the halfway point, as starting with chapter twelve the chapters get shorter and shorter as we move towards the end. The entire book is a bit over five hours. I finally had to stop and I’ll continue in the morning.
Beyond that, I got seven hours of sleep thanks to Fed Ex ringing the doorbell and awakening me – a package for Grant, actually, but he was in Newport yesterday so had it sent to me. Once up, I answered e-mails, forwarded orders, and then I had a visitor, who picked up the German DVD of Spaceship, so they can tell me how best we’ll do that transfer. Then I went to the mail place and picked up one little package, stopped at McDonald’s and got some food, came home and ate it all up. And then I began the long and winding proofing.
I had to take several breaks, so I listened to music occasionally, went to Ralph’s and got waters and Diet Coke and some parfait Jell-O-esque things – twenty-five calories each – came home and put stuff in the refrigerator, then went back to proofing. At some point, I went to the garage to put stuff out there and I met the nice fellow who’ll be moving into the back house where Grant’s mother lived – it’s just a one-room thing, but nice. I also worked on a song I’m working on for a project I’m helping with. I sent the reader my notes up through chapter six so she could get those done while I keep on proofing. I think we’ll be able to wrap up everything by Saturday and then I suppose it somehow goes live somewhere. When that happens, I’ll let you know, for those who might be interested in hearing it.
Today, I’ll try to sleep in so I get at least eight hours of sleep, then I’ll get right to proofing on chapter 10 and try to get through chapter fourteen or fifteen before I get some food, hopefully pick up some packages, then I’ll continue proofing until I finish, after which I will finally relax.
Tomorrow, Diana Canova gets into town and I’m sure we’ll converse at some point – otherwise I quite need to have a ME day and I’m also continuing to choose songs for the September Kritzerland, our ninth anniversary show. I’m hoping to sup with Diana at some point over the weekend, then on Monday we begin recording GEE at noon o’clock at a voiceover studio.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, try to get at least eight hours of sleep, continue proofing, eat, hopefully pick up packages, finish proofing, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Do you get embroiled in this kind of nonsense on Facebook – where it’s like beating your head against a brick wall? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as merrily we proof along.