Mid-afternoon. Errands and chores in
the morning, plus you bought new software,
StoryMill 4.05 through iTunes, to help with final drafting. It does not
appear to help in terms of ePub. You and Carol had lunch at Smashburgers and
are now at the nearby VOA Centre waiting for Carol who is looking for a new
two-year calendar at Hallmark. - Amorella
It will take me some time to acclimate
to the new software written specifically for writing novels. I puttered around
with it and it is going to take some time getting used to its operations. I
certainly like the concept and hope to put it to good use.
Strange it is that you would consider such
help when you have worked with words for much of your life. You are presently
at Rose Hill under a shade tree facing west. Carol is on page 251 of The
Last Patriot by Brad Thor. - Amorella
1556 hours. Why is it so strange?
Writing is more than intuitive. I have to see things objectively along the way.
I have never thought to view the novel as a whole until now because I didn't
know how it was going to conclude in the general let alone the specific sense.
Most of the software is for people like myself I assume. I thought I would copy
a chapter of a well-written similar book and run it through the mill just to
see what is going on.
What, pray tell, boy, would be a similar
book? - Amorella
Something Victorian.
Let's go to Page and continue yesterday's
work. - Amorella
1632
hours. I have the first six chapters set in Page: titles (28), subtitles (18),
and type (12) Times New Roman all, and I am ready to work on the final draft of
chapter one. I remember back in the late sixties when I had to ready my
Master's thesis for publication, the rule was to read the manuscript in
reverse, from the conclusion to the beginning of a section from right to left
and thus discover more correctable errors.
This is not a Master's thesis, boy, far from
it. We will work a pattern by paragraph through transition to paragraph. -
Amorella
I want this final draft to be clear
and concise, properly worded for content, consistently grammatically structured
and styled in an existential manner throughout, and with a 100 percent Flesch
readability level.
We will do what is necessary from a humbling
perspective, boy. If I see the pride (of perfection) welling up, we stop. You
got that, boy? - Amorella
1652 hours. I would have it no other
way, Amorella, your standards within for my own consistency of
heartansoulanmind. - rho
We stop, otherwise. That has always been the
case, boy.
1719 hours. We are home. I have a
fasting blood test in the morning for Dr. Bajaj. I am a bit apprehensive to
begin final drafting. I can't even articulate (on paper) what my concerns are.
I wonder how I published those first drafts. I found lots of errors later. This
is rather embarrassing for a retired teacher of English. Looking back I would
have given myself a C for the effort but at the time I thought it, all in all
was worthy of a B. I really can't hope for more. I don't ever remember earning
an A on a creative piece except in Advanced Poetry at Otterbein. Shoot, I don't
remember earning an A on anything at Otterbein but Physical Education and Air
Force ROTC. I earned a few A's in graduate school and Bowling Green (Ohio), but
most were B's. At the time, anyone in Graduate School was not expected to earn
anything less. Yet, I did, in Statistics (required) where I did indeed earn a
C; I earned that C. I don't think we even had grades other than
'Satisfactory' at Miami's Ohio Writing Conferences classes. I had at least 15
post graduate hours in those classes and enjoyed every one after the first,
which was required.
I
was humiliated by the fact that the entire high school English faculty was
required to take at least one class (me included). The school board paid the tuition, but I
was so angry. I had been writing most of my life and I had taught Creative
Writing, Business Writing and Expository Writing as separate classes, most at
Indian Hill High School, considered one of the best high schools in the state
at the time (it still is). I had had more than fifty poems published most
regionally and nationally, but none published by a vanity press.
I'll
never forget the first class and one of the professor I had met while at Indian
Hill ten years before said (first thing), "What are you doing here,
Orndorff?" (He said it with a smile, no less.) I shook his hand and
mumbled about the injustice of it all. I was lividly pissed for years to put it
politely (still am when I think about it). After that course though I took a
class every summer. The school board still paid for it. It was fun and I could
work on my skills both for the classroom and for myself. I don't received
taking orders from anyone to be honest, but I'll accept them from Carol. That's
about as far as I compromise.
With Carol you have no choice, boy. She
means too much to you. You would not be where you are without her. You love
her. - Amorella
No question about it, Amorella. Not
much I can or want to do about it either.
Post. - Amorella
You
had tomato and scrambled eggs and toast for supper then watched the news, last
night's "Broadchurch" and Tuesday's "Covert Affairs". You
are wondering how this Final Draft is going to operate. Let's take a peek. First,
create a new document in Word that will be the working Final. Copy the six
chapters from Page so we will have the Page document to put the corrections on
and the Word document for the work. Put all of your folders relating to the
creative work we have been doing since August 2012 in the GMG Folder make a copy
on your iBook external drive tonight. - Amorella
2109 hours. Wow. That clears the
desktop. It is very weird not to see those color coded file lined up on the
left. Now the only thing left will be my blue coded Notes 2009-2013 doc file
and my Working GMG One doc file.
Let's do one more thing to make a
psychological break -- change your desktop photo. - Amorella
This is drastic. I am going to
iPhoto directly. What about the dock at the bottom of the desktop?
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