OOPS!
posted by Suzanne Forster
on
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
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Guess who forgot it was her day to blog? My apologies, but as excuses go, but I have the perfect one. I finished my book! The never ending novel has an ending!!!!! It’s done. THE BOOK IS DONE!!!!!
It has a title too—THE PRIVATE CONCIERGE—and I was up well into the night, putting the final touches on the manuscript and trying to figure out how to use the insert function on my new Word 2007 Business Edition software so that I could merge all the chapters and email the manuscript in one big file. Maybe I should be blogging about a Word program so impossibly complicated that merely doing a header takes nearly a dozen different steps! Sheesh.
Small wonder I never figured out the insert function. But thank goodness for cut and paste. It was laborious and the entire process of putting everything together and fixing formatting problems, which insert does automatically, was a challenge to say the least, but the manuscript gods were with me and my chapters are now one big happy family, all tucked into bed together.
Some of you are probably asking yourselves why I didn’t write the manuscript in one big file to begin with? I’m asking myself the same thing, lol. Obviously no inserting or cutting and pasting would have been necessary, and I did consider going that route. But I chickened out. To be honest I consider it with every book—and chicken out. The thought of losing everything in one swell foop is just too horrible to contemplate. I’m getting a nervous rash thinking about it. And in this case, it would have been just over five-hundred pages. G-g-g-g-g-one.
No thank you! I do the book in batches, several chapters to a file, and then glue them all together when I’m ready to submit the ms. It’s a very simple process that takes mere moments with Word 2003, which I’ve been using up until this book. And would happily use again if I could only find the silly program. Somehow we’ve misplaced it, and since the new laptop came with 2007, I foolishly went were the tech-impaired fear to tred. Did I mention that Word 2007 Business Edition is unbeleeeeeevably complicated???
Sorry to go on at such length about all the technical details of manuscript submissions. I know it has be a snoozer to anyone who doesn’t have to do this sort of thing for a living. But I hope you’ll indulge me this one time because it’s very exciting to me. Why?
Because the book is done!!!!!!!!
Suz, who’s off to DQ today to celebrate
It has a title too—THE PRIVATE CONCIERGE—and I was up well into the night, putting the final touches on the manuscript and trying to figure out how to use the insert function on my new Word 2007 Business Edition software so that I could merge all the chapters and email the manuscript in one big file. Maybe I should be blogging about a Word program so impossibly complicated that merely doing a header takes nearly a dozen different steps! Sheesh.
Small wonder I never figured out the insert function. But thank goodness for cut and paste. It was laborious and the entire process of putting everything together and fixing formatting problems, which insert does automatically, was a challenge to say the least, but the manuscript gods were with me and my chapters are now one big happy family, all tucked into bed together.
Some of you are probably asking yourselves why I didn’t write the manuscript in one big file to begin with? I’m asking myself the same thing, lol. Obviously no inserting or cutting and pasting would have been necessary, and I did consider going that route. But I chickened out. To be honest I consider it with every book—and chicken out. The thought of losing everything in one swell foop is just too horrible to contemplate. I’m getting a nervous rash thinking about it. And in this case, it would have been just over five-hundred pages. G-g-g-g-g-one.
No thank you! I do the book in batches, several chapters to a file, and then glue them all together when I’m ready to submit the ms. It’s a very simple process that takes mere moments with Word 2003, which I’ve been using up until this book. And would happily use again if I could only find the silly program. Somehow we’ve misplaced it, and since the new laptop came with 2007, I foolishly went were the tech-impaired fear to tred. Did I mention that Word 2007 Business Edition is unbeleeeeeevably complicated???
Sorry to go on at such length about all the technical details of manuscript submissions. I know it has be a snoozer to anyone who doesn’t have to do this sort of thing for a living. But I hope you’ll indulge me this one time because it’s very exciting to me. Why?
Because the book is done!!!!!!!!
Suz, who’s off to DQ today to celebrate
Patricia Potter
Tara Taylor Quinn
Maggie Shayne
Anne Stuart
Suzanne Forster
Lynn Kerstan
12 Comments :
I like the 2003 too. I've been using WordPerfect ever since my husband reformatted the computer though. It's not as good but it's not too complicated either.
We'll forgive you since it means getting another of your books sometime down the road! LOL
CONGRATS on finishing TPC! Good luck with the program...they can be such a pain sometimes!
Forgetting to blog because you sent in your finished book .. I guess that is excusable. Although I think we should ask for a note from your editor. :)
Congrats. As I said on your yahoogroup when I saw the subject title I thought it was bad news. :)
Enjoy your DQ.
Your experience is the reason I stay with WordPerfect. It's so uncomplicated and easy. I do a new file for each chapter as well, again for the same reason as yours. I have lost chapters. I don't want to lose an entire manuscript.
But there's absolutely no better feeling than when the book is FINISHED.
CONGRATULATIONS and enjoy the day!!
Congrats on finishing your book. I hope whatever you had at the local DQ was good. I hope DQ stands for Dairy Queen.
Congrats! on getting the book completed. Looking forward to reading it.
My DW and I are taking a Word 2003 class in Adult school. Interesting so far. We did take a 2000 class earlier and that did us well.
Congrats on finishing your book!
Thanks, all! I keep expecting to go into flat-tire mode, which is what usually happens after I finish a book. I just can't move other than the click the remote and stare bleary-eyed at the TV for a day or two. But that hasn't happened this time, at least not yet.
This is more the helium balloon mode. I feel quite giddy, which is wonderful. And it's such a relief to know that I'm not the only one who struggles with these software programs. I should take that 2003 class. I've been using 2007 for almost a year, and I've probably forgotten the basics of 03. It just oughta be easier!
Suz
Congratulations on finishing your book.
YAY on the book being done! I'm so looking forward to typing those words myself!
I'm writing this one in one big file, but backing up a lot. I'm nervous, I don't like doing it this way, when I've always done a separate file for each chapter. But now that the publishers want it all in one file, I've grown tired of the cutting and pasting when I'm done, and am taking the plunge. I'll let you know how it goes.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Maggie
Woohoo! Are you doing the happy dance? A big hearty congratulations! It is such a great feeling isn't it to get it done.
Have a banana split on me!
Michele L.
HAHA... funny and somewhat pathetic... I thought you prepared your post, put it on the blog beforehand and it was timed to be showed at a specific time... guess I was wrong!
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