What I did on my summer vacation

What have I done lately, to put off writing?

1. Gardening - always a demanding chore. Those pesky weeds will not stop growing. On June 11th, I was doing a no-no and bending over to pull up weeds instead of using my foam kneeling pad. I stood up and said, "Oh, that didn't feel too good." But, I continued weeding and then went in and on the computer for a good half hour. At which point, I needed to use the facilities (bathroom - water pills you know). Only, I found out I could not get up without intense pain. It was like the Rocky Horror Picture Show (to definitely date my age.) I "moved to the right," "moved to the left," one arm over leg, one leg over leg, the mixtures are endless.
2. I did finally get up, and went to the ER. Something about a swelling pressing on a nerve. I opted for Ibuprofen, rather than steroids, and Hydrocodone. Four days later, all I wanted to do was throw up, but my back hurt too much to move. I went to my G.P. Turns out that sixteen ibuprofen a day can do that to your stomach. I was sent home with steroids (could have done that to begin with) , a leg x-ray (he felt I was favoring one leg and hurting my back), and an appointment to see a stomach doctor and a bone doctor
3. Took mom to the ER on the 23rd. She has congestive heart failure and this is her third trip this year.
4. 29th, had my stomach scoped and now am on the worse pills in the world. Fourteen days of H-Pylori medicine: four amoxicillin capsules, two clarithromycin tables and two prevacid a day. It's a great diet; if you don't mind being nauseous.
5. Then there was the fourth of July. I was to take mom to a parade, a festival, a picnic and the fireworks. South Central Indiana had its own plans - RAIN! The parade must have consisted of six guys on motorcycles, but we didn't see it. All the rest was rained out and we drove to Indy and she found three recliners she has been wanting to buy.

If anyone wants to know how my book is coming, that explains the slow final edit.

However, in my never-ending quest of what works and what doesn't, I have found that listening to it is great. I write in Word, so I am highlighting portions and listening to the "convert text to speech." I would much rather hear Jim Dale read my book but guess I will have to wait until it is published. In the meantime, it is amazing how much you can catch with a computer voice reading your work.

On To: Text to Speech

I have spent a couple of weeks polishing up my character charts. People change and grow and so had some of my characters. I have them all printed out and put in a binder and can now refer to them as I go through the book again. I will be looking for inconsistencies, this time around. However, I also made changes in the book as I was redoing my character charts.

When I found out something about my character, that I thought was important to change or add in the book, as I redid their chart, I did a Word find for their name and made corrections and/or additions in some of the spots where that character appears.

I use the find feature in Word, or find and replace, constantly. One way I use it is with asterisks. Since my book does not have asterisks in it, it is a character that I can use to mark a spot I want to go back to. And, since I now have my whole book in one Word document, it has been a real timesaver way to mark these spots and also where I left off last and wanted to return to.

Today, I started, what I hope will get me nearer to sending the book out. I am listening to the book, using my “Text to speech” feature. I highlight blocks of text and then listen to it without really looking at the text. My mind can concentrate on how it sounds and it also picks out mistakes.

One of the simple mistakes, that I had not caught in umpteen readings, was:

“In between his own yells hear he could hear Joseph yelling.”

I have to wonder how I could have read that and missed it, but our eyes/minds see what we expect to see, and I apparently knew the word "hear" should not be there. An Editor or Agent is not going to see what they expect. They do not have expectations on what is happening next (Well, we hope they do not, as you want to surprise them) so they will read it and read that extra “hear” and it will slow them down. Too many of these spots and you will lose them.

If you do not have text to speech on your computer, you can always set your book aside for a couple of weeks and then read it aloud. Having someone else read it aloud is good too.

Text to Speech reads my book

When no one is home, I will often read my story out loud to myself. It is really one of the best ways to test your writing. However, there are still those times when I will read what I am expecting to read and not catch the little mistakes that are there. Text to Speech, on your computer helps catch it all.

When others are here and the tv is blaring, I use Text to Speech in my Windows XP, to read my story to me. And, I know those of you with VISTA have this feature also as it is about the only thing in VISTA that actually works. JRockGuitarMan, youngest boy, has a writing disability and uses it to dictate his papers. You can go into Control Panel and set the speed at which he reads, and sometimes it is spooky.

I swear I have caught Text to Speech putting emotion in that was not accounted for by the punctuation. It has also, I swear, added a Scottish accent to one of my characters. Now, I did use “ye be going” type of speech but I only alter a few of the words because I do not like it when a lot of foreign speech is inserted in a book, but this little machine voice started speaking this characters work with an accent. Okay, so maybe it was late at night, but I swear it's true.

In any event, hearing your writing read aloud should be part of your final line edit. You need to listen to each sentence and analyze whether you have written the most visual sentence you can or is there a better way to say it; to keep your reader in your world. Remember, each and every sentence counts.