Books -- reading and writing.
Home, cooking, the weather.
And whatever connections I can make between these chapters of my life.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Dead Matter

We all have it.
That detritus of STUFF that you save after a book has long since seen the light of day.

Whether you have a stack a mile high, or to be more exact- a shelf wide. Or one book, or three. Authors have copyedits. They have notes. They have editors who give them notes and letters and copyedits.
(For example, you can't really see eye-to-eye when you're walking side-by-side. Or at least that's what one copyeditor noted. And while I'm at it, is it copy editor or copyeditor? AND is funnybook really TWO words? As in Little Lulu?)


I am inspired by my friend Barbara O'Connor's post on things her editors taught her. So to speak. 
Truthfully, I suspect she taught them a thing or two! Don't even get me started about barbeque.

HERE'S HER POST. Click over there and read it. Such fun!

For example:

Lunch box is two words but tailpipe is one word.

Hot dog is two words but bottlecap is one word.

Popsicle is capitalized.





(I'm proud to say that my manuscripts and all my editing notes are stored in the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi. I'm hoping to visit them when I'm there at the Kaigler Festival in April. Can't wait!)

3 comments:

Rosi said...

I LOVE the cartoon. And thanks for the link. Some good info there. Thanks for the post.

Carol Baldwin said...

Thanks for the link to Barbara's post. And how cool that your "dead matter" is being preserved!!!

Augusta Scattergood said...

I'm not sure who else but writers would be interested in the minutiae of editing, but I'm fascinated. Glad, and not surprised, you two were and that you chimed in. Thanks for commenting!