Monthly Archives: May 2004

Air

I really, really ought to remember to open the windows in here more often. I discovered a warm, fresh-smelling world when I went out to pick up laundry detergent at the corner. Now that they’re open, the place feels more awake and relaxed. And the entire caboodle of kittens are now squished into the open windows, pressing as close to the fascinating new smells of the Great Outdoors as they possibly can.

Plagiarism Debacle

The solution:

1. We cut most of the offending material, as it’s non-essential.

2. We cite the other book the author published the information in, for the bits we keep.

3. The author never works with us again.

I’ve put too much work into it to cancel the book, so I’m fine with this. We have to recoup the time and money we’ve put in somehow, and publication’s the only way to do it. The manuscript is in galleys now, which is usually the point of no return; you can edit for punctuation or spelling errors, or remove something, but you can’t add anything. Galleys are also known as proofs, and they’re the final step before publication. They show you what the layout of the final book is going to be, and it’s the last chance you have to catch errors.

Thank the Goddess I caught this one before it was too late.

I have a feeling this author’s agent has received a nasty eye-opener concerning her client. I don’t know what the fallout will be, but we reap what we sow, so I’ll leave it up to them to work it out. Interestingly enough, the same agent represents the other author we’ve been working with on the second book, and that’s been sailing along so beautifully that the agent has a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the two situations. The only variable has been the author; the editing team is the same. The agent can draw her own conclusions.

An editor is supposed to be “a partner, not a critic” according to Richard Webster (author of How to Write for the New Age Market), but by this point I’m so unimpressed with the author that I don’t feel that this is a partnership at all; I feel like we’ve been doing most of the work. I know that there are authors out there who hand in substandard work and expect the editing team to polish it for them, and I find this attitude intolerable. I can’t know this author’s attitude throughout this process, but the lack of response to the first set of requests for rewrites, and this previously published material issue don’t do much for my confidence in him. A reader wants to trust the author. The editor helps that happen by making the material as accessible and as interesting as possible. Technically our goal is the same: to create a strong, positive product. So why do I feel so let down?

Everyone slips from time to time. This author claims that the material was a placeholder, that he meant to pull it out and rewrite it, and forgot, and he’s terribly embarrassed. Every single author I know is busy and overloaded with work of various sorts. There are authors out there who write books to pay the bills. This author had two projects that overlapped, and identical material ended up in both. I just happened to browse through the one that got published first. Whatever. His story might be true, it might not. It’s just further proof to me that he doesn’t really care about his readers. It also suggests that he doesn’t respect his subject, either, which as a reader upsets me.

I keep trying to like humanity, I really do. And then something like this happens, and I get all dejected and wonder if anyone’s honest at all.

It seems to be sunny today. I might wander downtown to clear my brain.

Spellcrafting Book Update

As of the end of today’s writing jam, I am officially just over 1/7th done this book. My day’s total included 1,756 words and an hour of math; I’m working on planetary hours. My most important tip, garnered from years of pain and strife: just reduce everything to minutes right away, and save yourself unnecessary grief by using the 24 hour clock.

One-seventh done. Wow. I’m in awe.

My word count currently rests at 11,006 and for some reason, I find this incredibly amusing.

Rick And Evy Go To Sleepy Hollow

Oh look – it’s HRH and Autumn’s next Hallowe’en costumes:

“Are you kidding?” said t!, who brought over the soundtrack today (and who called it “Rick and Evy go to Sleepy Hollow”). “You guys dress like that every day. Where’s the fun in that?”

(Hey, wow – it’s rated PG-13 for “non-stop creature action violence and frightening images, and for sensuality.” How’s that for a night out?)

OOAK Work of Art no. 1

Since people seem to think my odd hobby has some coolness to it, I’m about to throw caution and my shyness to the wind and share my first project. Here’s a couple of pics of the Yule gift I gave to our local cougar:

The OOAK Morrighan Barbie wears a hand-made black linen skirt with two full-length slits in the front, laced shut at the front of the hips with copper floss. Her hand-dyed black halter top with mesh sleeves ties at the back. Woven into her left front braid is a pewter feather; another pewter feather is laced with copper floss to her hand-painted spear, along with a black crow feather. On her right hand lands a hand-made raven, wings held wide. Around her waist is tied a hand-tinted miniature of the recipient’s Craft tradition third-degree cords.

And a decent look at the feather cloak which rests on the Morrighan’s shoulders, designed to look like two folded raven wings:

I was really pleased with how the whole doll presents an air of alert motion and activity. For any OOAK fans who stumble across this post as a result of a search engine and who need to know, the Morrighan was created from a Kayla Secret Spells doll, and her face was not repainted: I managed to find one off the shelf who had a perfect disdainful yet amused I-can-see-into-your-soul look on her face that I wanted, without any touch-ups required.

The next doll I’m customising is very different from the active and alert Morrighan, however; I’m trying for a softer, dreamier look. And then there are the three dolls I have sitting to the left of my desk, who are destined to become a shadowbox scene of the three aspects of the goddess Brid: muse, smith, and healer. None of them require repainting, thank goodness, only creating original costumes from the sketches and colour notes I have in my notebook. (Yes, yes, fine: the dolls are Batik Princess, TRU Charity Ball 1997, and Grand Entrance 2 respectively. Happy, fellow OOAKers?)

There. More than I ever thought I’d let anyone know about this hobby. Hey, it’s costuming in miniature: saves money, saves time, and the result isn’t just worn once then hung in a closet.