Charlie's Diary

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Sat, 24 Jul 2004 Now, where was I ...? Last week, yr. hmbl. crspndnt. was immersed in the slow, painful process of redrafting a novel (the third one in the fantasy series I'm writing for Tor, if you must know), when a large bundle of galley proofs (for the first book in the same series) flopped through the letterbox. As is so often the case, the bundle of proofs came with a covering letter (dated the 15th of July), and began with an apology: "Dear Charlie, this is due back in production no later than the 30th. Can you let me know if you have any problems with this ..." "Due back in production" means that any corrections I have to make to the page proofs have to be in front of the typesetter so they can correct the Quark file and fire it off to the printer. At this stage, being late means the book won't make it to the printer on time, which means it won't make it to the shops on time. Which is a big oopsie. Especially as the typesetter is sitting in an office in New York and I'm in an office in Edinburgh and I have to allow time for the trans-Atlantic air mail on top of whatever allowances I have to make for my sanity. Because proofreading is not my favourite job. (Is it anybodies?) This was basically a drop-everything task: tweaking the draft of a novel that isn't in production yet goes on the back-burner to make room for one that's due on sale in something less than a hundred days. And I've just now gotten through it, at least to a point where I'm willing to let it go with a shrug of resignation. Because I am a truly appalling proofreader. I mean, I'm crap. I know this because, years ago when I was earning my crust as a technical author, one of my managers tried to turn me into one. She gave up eventually, in disgust. I'm useless at spotting my own mis-spellings, because likelier than not they're one that I've got wired into my own head as a correct spelling: if a spelling checker and a copy editor let it pass, I'm not going to notice it. I'm a bit better at spotting dropped sentences or munged paragraphs, but I can't guarantee to get it right. And (like most would-be proofreaders) I tend to read what I expect to see, not what's on the paper. I'm especially handicapped by the attention span of a ferret on crack, a side-effect of my easily distracted neophiliac tendencies: this is very useful when nosing out weird new tropes to stick in a cutting-edge piece of SF, but less than helpful when the job in hand entails emulating an OCR package. Anyway, I'm now at the breathe-a-sigh-of-relief stage. The corrected proofs are ready to go off, I'm about to go back to scratching my head over the draft on the cutting room floor, and I've got to sort out the passage I'm reading next Tuesday. And -- oh, that. Special announcement time: This server, which has served me doggedly (if not well) for most of the past three years, is about to go away. Back in 2001, a basic web server with 64Mb of memory seemed reasonable. I leased it for three years, cash up front. I didn't bargain with the stupendous growth in spam (which can be filtered, but which entails running memory-hungry and processor-intensive scripts on a constant basis) and the need to run mailing lists and weblog software (which are also memory and CPU hogs). The Antipope box is now tottering under the load, and the lease is due to expire at the end of September. Next Monday I'm going to cough up a painful lump of cash and, in return, lease a new box. One that has at least 16 times the memory, 16 times the disk space, and 8 times the processor power of the old one. Migrating everything over to the new system will take some time (we run six or seven mailman mailing lists, two blogging systems, email and DNS for five domains, two levels of spam filtering, a usenet news server, and various other kipple), so there might be some service (and blogging) interruptions during August. (The situation is exacerbated by a road trip I need to take in the first two weeks of the month.) But aside from that, I'm going to try to get back in the habit of posting regularly. [Discuss writing] posted at: 19:18 | path: /writing | permanent link to this entry

specials: Is SF About to Go Blind? -- Popular Science article by Greg Mone Unwirer -- an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction Inside the MIT Media Lab -- what it's like to spend a a day wandering around the Media Lab "Nothing like this will be built again" -- inside a nuclear reactor complex Quick links: RSS Feed (Moved!) Who am I? Contact me Buy my books: (FAQ) Missile Gap Via Subterranean Press (US HC -- due Jan, 2007) The Jennifer Morgue Via Golden Gryphon (US HC -- due Nov, 2006) Glasshouse Via Amazon.com (US HC -- due June 30, 2006) The Clan Corporate Via Amazon.com (US HC -- out now) Accelerando Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB -- due June 27, 2006) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Free download The Hidden Family Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) The Family Trade Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Iron Sunrise Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) The Atrocity Archives Via Amazon.com (Trade PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (Trade PB) Via Golden Gryphon (HC) Via Amazon.com (HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (HC) Singularity Sky Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.com (US ebook) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Toast Via Amazon.com Via Amazon.co.uk Some webby stuff I'm reading: [ Engadget ] [ Gizmodo ] [ The Memory Hole ] [ Boing!Boing! ] [ Futurismic ] [ Walter Jon Williams ] [ Making Light (TNH) ] [ Crooked Timber ] [ Junius (Chris Bertram) ] [ Baghdad Burning (Riverbend) ] [ Bruce Sterling ] [ Ian McDonald ] [ Amygdala (Gary Farber) ] [ Cyborg Democracy ] [ Body and Soul (Jeanne d'Arc)  ] [ Atrios ] [ The Sideshow (Avedon Carol) ] [ This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) ] [ Jesus's General ] [ Mick Farren ] [ Early days of a Better Nation (Ken MacLeod) ] [ Respectful of Otters (Rivka) ] [ Tangent Online ] [ Grouse Today ] [ Hacktivismo ] [ Terra Nova ] [ Whatever (John Scalzi) ] [ GNXP ] [ Justine Larbalestier ] [ Yankee Fog ] [ The Law west of Ealing Broadway ] [ Cough the Lot ] [ The Yorkshire Ranter ] [ Newshog ] [ Kung Fu Monkey ] [ S1ngularity ] [ Pagan Prattle ] [ Gwyneth Jones ] [ Calpundit ] [ Lenin's Tomb ] [ Progressive Gold ] [ Kathryn Cramer ] [ Halfway down the Danube ] [ Fistful of Euros ] [ Orcinus ] [ Shrillblog ] [ Steve Gilliard ] [ Frankenstein Journal (Chris Lawson) ] [ The Panda's Thumb ] [ Martin Wisse ] [ Kuro5hin ] [ Advogato ] [ Talking Points Memo ] [ The Register ] [ Cryptome ] [ Juan Cole: Informed comment ] [ Global Guerillas (John Robb) ] [ Shadow of the Hegemon (Demosthenes) ] [ Simon Bisson's Journal ] [ Max Sawicky's weblog ] [ Guy Kewney's mobile campaign ] [ Hitherby Dragons ] [ Counterspin Central ] [ MetaFilter ] [ NTKnow ] [ Encyclopaedia Astronautica ] [ Fafblog ] [ BBC News (Scotland) ] [ Pravda ] [ Meerkat open wire service ] [ Warren Ellis ] [ Brad DeLong ] [ Hullabaloo (Digby) ] [ Jeff Vail ] [ The Whiskey Bar (Billmon) ] [ Groupthink Central (Yuval Rubinstein) ] [ Unmedia (Aziz Poonawalla) ] [ Rebecca's Pocket (Rebecca Blood) ] Older stuff: June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 (I screwed the pooch in respect of the blosxom entry datestamps on March 28th, 2002, so everything before then shows up as being from the same time)

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