seanan_mcguire @ 2008-11-22T13:19:00

2008-11-22T21:26:00Z

Well, I just finished copy-editing my friend's manuscript and returned it for review. Because I am virtuous and hard-working and industrious and stuff. (I am now awaiting the crews of trained ninja assassins and rabid pixies to burst through my bedroom windows and slaughter me, but that's another matter altogether.) As my reward, I shall go and see Bolt with my housemate. That's how we roll around here. Oh, yeah.

I'm actually quite pleased with myself. I managed to copy-edit -- lightly, but still thoroughly -- an entire manuscript, while not falling behind in my own (often self-assigned) deadlines. As I said earlier, I have some things I have to finish this weekend, but none of them have been endangered by my taking the time, so ha.

Copy-editing someone else when I spend so much time being copy-edited was interesting, because I've learned a lot of rules of grammar and punctuation without intending to; they were hammered through my admittedly thick skull through constant and occasionally angry repetition. (You'd be angry too if you'd given me the same correction fifty-seven times.) There are a lot of casual behaviors, text-wise, that are technically incorrect, but which we happily do anyway. What's interesting is that they often create a slight feeling of 'something is wrong here' when we look at those sentences in a critical fashion, yet without knowing the actual rule, we may or may not be able to articulate the actual problem. The brain is fascinating. So is the language.

...wow, that was all a little closer to 'deep thinking' than I like to be on a Saturday afternoon immediately after completing a large task. Blame it on the soda the size of my head (which is woefully now gone to the great soda fountain in the sky).

Off to the movies; don't burn down the Internet while I'm away, and I'll reward you later with my cranberry sauce recipe.

Rose-Owls and Pumpkin Girls

seanan_mcguire @ 2008-11-22T13:19:00