you told me again you preferred handsome men, but for me you would make an exception
mood: 
thirsty
thirstymusic: Rasputina - Transylvanian Concubine
Anyway, I bought those and some roast beef, and Heinz 57 sauce, and cheddar cheese (not very good cheddar, but I am in Nevada; it limits the choices. At least it wasn't orange, which can be a challenge around here), and some creamy horseradish sauce. (I loathe mayonnaise, but I like horseradish sauce all right.)
And a chocolate cake. *g*
And lo there were sandwiches, and they were good.
They were sort of exactly like Arby's sandwiches if Arby's sandwiches weren't gross.
I know a lot of writers. And the thing about writers is that we have control issues, and we obsess about the stupidest shit. Partially, I think this is because so much of what we do is outside our control.
Like standard manuscript format. It's really very easy, and it makes short fiction editors happy when they get a sub in Courier twelve point left-justified right-ragged double spaced with one- or one-and-a-half-inch margins, with a name and title and page number on every page but the first, and a name and address and so forth on the very first page in the upper left-hand corner.
It's really not hard. And yet a lot of writers won't do it, for whatever reason. (Get over yourselves. It looks unprofessional. You probably go to work in flip flops, too.)
Book editors (and agents) don't even seem to care about the Courier part, in my experience, as long as you give them something easily legible and not too weird looking. Garamond or Times or Bookman.
But I have it on good authority that the production people (the book designers and copyeditors and so forth) do care about courier, for a very simple reason: there's lots of room to write on a manuscript that's in Courier. So it's courteous to the people who have the most impact on how your book is presented to give it to them in a nice fixed-width font.
Anyway, really, this is not a dissertation submittal. Just give 'em something they can read, and tell at a glance how long it is, and if they drop it and five other MSs on the subway and get them jumbled together they can sort them out, and you too can be a slushpile hero.
Anyway, that's the sort of thing that writers obsess about to avoid actually, you know, writing.
Progress notes for 4 August 2005:
"Lucifugous"
New Words: 338
Total Words: 1964
Pages: 9
Reason for stopping: Having done the setup, now I need to figure out how the locked dirigible part of the locked dirigible mystery works. Of course, the mystery is sort of something for the characters to be doing while the smut plays out, but still. It does help if the plot works.
Mammalian Assistance: the mastiff was begging. so I gave him a banana. and then he was all like "What do you expect me to do with THAT?" And then he ate it, and smelled of bananas.
Stimulants: sencha
Exercise: none. I should probably do something about that, but I have been both exhausted and achy lately. It's probably West Nile Virus. :-P
Mail: rejection from ASIM. Also, Sci Fi Wire has the filet of an interview with yours truly up today.
Today's words Word don't know: n/a
Words I'm surprised Word do know: isinglass
Tyop du jour: the rumpled dovers stripped back to reveal a bottom sheet scalloped with creases. Not the most comfortable sleeping surface I can think of.
Darling du jour: n/a
Books in progress, but not at all quickly: China Miéville, Iron Council; Richard Overy, Russia's War: A History of the Soviet War Effort, 1941-1945; Jack Kerouac, On the Road; Kathryn Allen, The Middlemost Child
Interesting research tidbits of the day: passenger airship floor plan.
Mean things: I threw an old lady off an airship.
Other writing-related work: Another 50 pp of Middlemost fussed at last night. Also, "The Something Dreaming Game" rewritten and submitted.
Go Courier, go!
Blind as a mole, and I love Courier because I CAN READ IT on the screen.
---L.
Yes, yes, yes!
I know it wouldn't be the same as fresh, but we could overnight it. It'd be close. :)
It's not exactly that -- you have the same margins whatever font you use. It's that a fixed-width font makes it really easy to calculate the page-count for a final book and how it will be affected by changes in typeface and design.
There's more space between letters in a fixed-width font. Thus, more room for pencil marks.
Again, thanks for teaching me something useful.
I ponder Courier because I have three versions, Dark, vanilla, and New, and they all look different on the screen and more importantly, print differently on my trusty LaserJet.
I recall feeling surprised that my first agent sent out what I felt was a sub-par printout of CODE to editors. It was in Courier New, double-spaced, with one-inch margins and the headers and all that, but something was missing that I can't recall and I thought it mattered. Apparently, it didn't.
Said agent also told me to not bother printing mss on 24-pound rag paper, as was advised by several manuscript formatting articles. He said all it added was weight and thickness, while offering no significant improvement in appearance or ruggedness. This saved me some money.
I do tend to stick to paper brightness factors >90.
What makes Courier so wonderful for copyediting is that the characters are spaced well, allowing you to spot typos more easily. Times is dreadful for copyediting--the letters are too squashed together.
Thanks for the information!
Gads! *brain breaks*
(I tend to do things in New Times Roman unless it states otherwise. Courier looks wrong to me for some reason.)
That is all.
I do have one question about format.... Each of my chapters start with a substantial (such as 1-page) excerpt from one of the Inspector Jardin mysteries (excerpt written by me). If this were a bound book, I would hope the excerpt would appear in indented italics. But I'm thinking it this is wrong for manuscript format. I'm also not thrilled with underlining the entire excerpt. What do you suggest?
---L.