Saturday, April 3, 2010

everything is supposed to be perfect


And, so while I'm on the subject of reviewing things, I did manage to find a typo in the galley of The Marbury Lens.

I know it was a typo, because in my insane attachment to such things, I compared the text of the galley with my final manuscript.

A friend of mine once said to me, "Oh, I am reading a galley right now and it has dozens of errors in it. Isn't that what galleys are supposed to be like?"

And I said, no, galleys are supposed to be perfect.

I hate typos.

[in the head of a typesetter]Let's see now... he has this sentence that begins, "The Easter bunny, determined to make children happy, foolishly made its way out into the crush of the roaring intersection, only to be..."

[Side note: Does that count as one animal killing per blog post? But, I digress, to continue inside the mind of the typesetter:]

... shouldn't it be 'made it's way??? hmmm... I think I will save the day and insert my apostrophe!!! Splendid!!!

For me, as sensitive as I am about such things as exclamation points and blaspheming coffee with flavored creamers, there is one thing that trumps all -- the misuse of the apostrophe.

Apostrophes (note: there is no apostrophe on apostrophes) are kind of like Spartacus: enslaved by dumb people.

Not that there is an apostrophic error in my galley of The Marbury Lens. I just needed to vent about typos.

And, speaking of galleys and reviews, I did just finish reading the galley of The Haunting of Charles Dickens by my friend, Lewis Buzbee. And I have a few things I plan on saying about this book.

Soon.

Tomorrow, I leave for New York City. I will try to keep Drew away from the blog posts, but you never know what might happen when I'm away.