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Typochondriac – A Writer’s Ailment

I suffer badly from this ailment, but with good cause.

I firmly believe that typographical errors are generated by fae folk such as brownies or sprites. They hide in the thickets of sentences as we write then breed their hideous progeny when we think we have cleaned everything.

Before publishing Cobra Flight I used the services of a copy editor, two (2!) proofreaders and every form of electronic grammar checker invented — and still the little bastards made it into the final edition.

I have no doubt that I have taken my immortal soul into my own hands by revealing the activities of these foul sprites and this very post will contain their piosonTypochondriac -- One who proofreads written material even when it passes all spell and grammar checks

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Cure Writer’s Block and Procrastination With a Slap In The Face

Recently there was a scene in the long running and highly successful television series, Supernatural, that contained the most direct and the most powerful guidance I have ever run into for dealing with Writer’s Block or just procrastination in general.

The scene doesn’t matter and I don’t want to spoil the identity of the two writers talking about the issue, but here is the, stand still and let me slap you in the face with a dead salmon bit of tough advice.

“You’re a writer. A writer who is not writing.

And when a writer is not writing they feel sad, and they feel lost.

And the writer asks themselves, “Why do I feel this way? Why am I so sad and lost?”

And what does all this navel gazing and hair pulling amount to in the end? Procrastination, distraction.

They’re among million things that a writer uses to avoid doing the one thing that is all but guaranteed to make the writer feel better.

Which is?

Writing.”

This is easily the best and clearest analysis of what nonsense writers get up to with procrastination and writer’s block. Sure, it is a variation of the old “Just get off your ass and write!” advice.

But, once you think about it, the main character in the scene has it right. This is “all but guaranteed to work.”

I’d say there is no doubt about it.

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Note Taking for Writers

There are some pretty specific techniques and practices you can pick up from the world of serious journalism, in particular, newspaper, magazine, and broadcast journalism, that will elevate your analytic and writing skills far above the average.

One of the most important is note-taking.

These note-taking techniques will work for any kind of writing you do, be it Fiction, Journalism, Non-Fiction, Plays, Daily Journals, whatever.

I am a product of the journalistic world, and I still use its tools and practices in my non-fiction and fiction worlds which have nothing to do with daily journalism.

They are founded on attitude, consistency, and simplicity.

They require little if any work on your part. But, they will, absolutely, improve everything in your writing life.

The first thing you have got to grasp is that you will forget some, part of, or all of a thought or observation you have unless you get it down in physical form.

Memory is as fleeting as summer lightning. It is all too common to forget the very fact that you had thought of something in the first place. You have no hope of hanging onto more than a few fragments of an idea if all you rely on is memory.

And be aware that the mind is far too quick to make up details, recreate false statements, and utterly mess up anything that has been in your head in an incomplete manner for more than a few minutes. There is a reason why police offices, lawyers, journalists, doctors, and many other detail oriented professionals get issued a notebook before anything else.

The second thing is that no note-taking system can be too simple. And the simplest is pen and paper.

If you need to stop what you are doing to open an app, or fish your phone out of your pocket and enter its security code, or stop to find your special pen, or fire up a voice recorder, your thought is in danger of disappearance. At best, your thought is subject to corruption as your mind tries to fill in details it does not have.

The third thing is, as much as possible try to use one system only.

Don’t use Evernote, One Note, Google Keep, Zoot, or any others indiscriminately and simultaneously. You will lose notes.

Here is my system. Others will have better and perhaps worse, but that’s okay as long as you pick something and stick to it, making no changes to it without long and hard thought.

One of the writers I greatly admire is James Rebanks (A Shepherd’s Life) who says he and his fellow shepherds in England’s Lake district are pathologically opposed to new ways of doing things. “If you have done something on your farm for generations the same way, and it works, then that is a good reason not to change.”

Now generally, I am not a follower of that philosophy. I am the type who is always the first kid on the block with the latest technology, the latest software, the latest gadget. But, when it comes to writing, and more specifically the recording of those ideas and other elements that go into writing, I am a purist.

So, pick something and use it without modification until you are unequivocally sure that a change will help.

I carry a softcover notebook of about 60 pages that fits into a hip pocket. It is with me all day, everyday. With it I also have a telescoping pen that also sits in the hip pocket. The Space Pen is the right size but there are others. You could also have a cut down pencil if that is your preference. But the point is that the notebook and the pen are always together and always on your person.

The Procedure

  • Date and time your thought.
  • Write it in one simple sentence, or a decent sentence fragment.
  • Only when those two things have been done, and it doesn’t matter how fragmentary your recorded note is, do you then tag on any context, color, or subsidiary thoughts.
  • Don’t worry about handwriting, in fact it is good practice not to even look at the paper while you are jotting. When you open your notebook, don’t try to find the next available page or section of page, just open it at random, give it a quick glance to make sure that you have a clear space to write, and then charge ahead. You can indeed write without looking at what you are doing.
  • You must always try to make sure that nothing gets between the still bubbling thought in your brain and the words on the paper.

The next step, and it can be done quite some time after the actual note taking, is to make a Table of Contents entry.

I number all the pages in my notebook. When the note is done I flip to the first page and on its own line I put down the random page number where I dumped the note. Then, I give it some sort of title so I can refer to it later. A primitive TOC will make finding and using your note a lot easier. Having to flip through dozens of pages looking for something or other is no a good use of your time.

It is really important to get these notes into a more formal record keeping system before they turn into cryptic messages from an alien underworld. So, as soon as you can it is best to put them into your favourite computerized data system, be it Evernote, Zoot, One Note or whatever. It really doesn’t matter what you use as long as you only use one. If you scatter notes across recording systems you will lose them.

For longer notes, or perhaps even full scenes in a book manuscript, you can use a portable voice recorder and then import them as text files using one of the Dragon Naturally Speaking editions that supports transcription, not all do.

Using a voice recorder is superb for describing a location you might want to use in a story, or to get down as much complicated detail that you think you will need.

A variation on that technique is to hit the video button on your phone and visually record your surroundings as you describe the scene.

A different system might be necessary when working right at your computer. It may be best to pop open your database program and type out a note, but be wary that you don’t get shunted down a rabbit hole. I keep my little notebook right next to my mouse, or I reach for the voice recorder.

Remember this at peril of losing your thought; your note taking system has to be one-step simple.

A lot of people have asked me about the idea of learning shorthand for note taking. My answer is, don’t bother.

I learned shorthand as a young reporter and use it still, but it is of limited use to the fiction writer. There are rather simple techniques outlined on the web and in instruction books for what is called Speed Writing and you could look into them if you are interested.

The main thing is, have a way of getting that thought out of your head as quickly as possible, with the least technical effort so you don’t run into this common scenario:

Find app,

Open it,

Menu, select Make New Note   

At which point you forget what the hell your were going to say.

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Commas and Typos – Redux

I hope that this is the last time I have to write about typographic errors, but quite frankly I doubt that I will ever be free of the chore. They breed like wild boars in a forest and forever root around in all of the text like it is swill in a trench.

But, it may be the last time I have to write about them in context to Cobra Flight.

If you click on the Categories list in the sidebar and then on Writing-Skills you will find several entries about my unfortunate experiences with typos in publishing the book. One entry in particular has an unfortunate and premature title .

As I neared the end of doing the voicing of Cobra Flight for the audiobook I resolved to send the manuscript yet again to a proof-reader before I shipped it off to be turned into a paperback.

I was, however, quite confident that I had nailed every one of the little bastards and doing another proofread would be for reassurance only.

Now, keep in mind that the manuscript had been through my own, not inconsiderable editing skills, a professional copy-editor, and two experienced proofreaders. In addition, just about every piece of grammar checking software I could find had been let loose. And then in the recording phase I had found what I believed were the remaining bastards.

So, imagine by chagrin, shock, and anger, when it came back to me with 1,062 errors flagged in MSWord Tracking.

That was a staggering number of errors and I was ready to just drive an oaken stake through the black heart of the book and walk away.

But, on closer inspection I saw what had gone on.

You have to understand that there are two approaches to writing and those approaches affect how words are edited, and how they are handled.

Formal prose is the sort of thing one would find in a weighty non-fiction treatise. The other approach is focused on clarity of communication and is suited more for things like novels than 15 thousand word New Yorker Magazine essays.

My third proofreader was very much from the world of Correct Grammar and the precise use of punctuation. My two other proofreaders were the other way, as well as being blind of course.

I write, or I try to write, very much as how an itinerant story teller would spin yarns and myths around the fires of the Golden Horde as they swept out of Asia to massacre Europe; the way people tell each other ghost stories late at night around the fire at the weekend cottage. It is the way that good radio and television personalities reach out and grab listeners by the ears so they cannot pull away from the story.

Unfortunately, the people who write grammar books, who make up rules about punctuation, who use strict language usage rules to establish power over others, never seem to read novels, so they miss the point.

My writing bible is the Chicago Manual of Style. While there are other style guides out there, none are as comprehensive and so widely accepted.

No one ever got tossed into the grammar dungeons for following the guides in the CMOS.

But, one needs to keep one’s head when reading it.

The section on comma usage is 16 pages long and contains something like 35 sections about this or that and whatever involving commas. All worthy stuff if you are editing for the New Yorker, but a sticky tar pool of disaster for the novel writer.

The authors of the CMOS recognize this and make a crucial point, which seems to escape the understanding of pendants.

This is how the editors introduce the comma section.

Section 6.16

“ … it usually denotes a slight pause. … Effective use of the comma involves good judgment , with ease of reading the end in view.” (My emphasis)

Let’s just scoot over to end of the chase where we cut them off at the pass.

I did a bunch of spot checks in the list of suggested changes and then decided I didn’t have enough time to see where I might have misused a comma. Instead, I hit Accept All Changes and accepted the fact that while I would never have sprinkled commas around the way this proofreader thought proper, no one was ever going to come after me for being pedantic, whereas they would if their beady little nazi eyes spotted a Rick Grant induced comma error.

I’ve mentioned this before in context to typos, but Sod’s Law, requires there to be typos in this post as well as the microscopically checked Cobra Flight, so don’t complain.

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Top Techniques for Writing – Part One

There are some pretty specific techniques and practices you can pick up from the world of serious journalism, in particular newspaper, magazine, and broadcast journalism, that will elevate your analytic and writing skills far above the average.

They will work for any kind of writing you do, be it Fiction, Journalism, Non-Fiction, Plays, Daily Journals, whatever.

I am a product of the journalistic world, and I still use its tools and practices in my non-fiction and fiction worlds which of course have nothing to do with daily journalism.

They are founded on attitude, consistency, and simplicity.

They do not require much if any work on your part. But, they will, absolutely, improve everything in your writing life.

The first thing you have got firmly grasp is that you will forget some, part of, or all of a thought or observation you have unless you get it down in physical form.

Memory is as fleeting as summer lightning. It is all too common to forget the very fact that you had thought of something in the first place. You have no hope of hanging onto more than a few fragments of an idea if all you rely on is memory.

And be aware that the mind is far too quick to make up details, recreate false statements, and utterly mess up anything that has been in your head in an incomplete manner for more than a few minutes. There is a reason why police offices, lawyers, journalists, doctors, and many other detail oriented professionals get issued a notebook before anything else.

The second thing is that no note-taking system can be too simple. And the simplest is pen and paper.

If you need to stop what you are doing to open an app, or fish your phone out of your pocket and enter its security code, or stop to find your special pen, or fire up a voice recorder, your thought is in danger of disappearance. At best, your thought is subject to corruption as your mind tries to fill in details it does not have.

The third thing is, as much as possible try to use one system only.

Don’t use Evernote, One Note, Google Keep, Zoot, or any others indiscriminately and simultaneously. You will lose notes.

Here is my system. Others will have better and perhaps worse, but that’s okay as long as you pick something and stick to it, making no changes to it without long and hard thought.

One of the writers I greatly admire is James Rebanks (A Shepherd’s Life) who says he and his fellow shepherds in England’s Lake district are pathologically opposed to new ways of doing things. “If you have done something on your farm for generations the same way, and it works, then that is a good reason not to change.”

Now generally, I am not a follower of that philosophy. I am the type who is always the first kid on the block with the latest technology, the latest software, the latest gadget. But, when it comes to writing, and more specifically the recording of those ideas and other elements that go into writing, I am a purist.

So, pick something and use it without modification until you are unequivocally sure that a change will help.

Telescoping Fisher Space Pen. It also writes underwater and upside down
Telescoping Fisher Space Pen. It also writes underwater and upside down

I carry a softcover notebook of about 60 pages that fits into a hip pocket. It is with me all day, everyday. With it I also have a telescoping pen that also sits in the hip pocket. The Space Pen is the right size but there are others. You could also have a cut down pencil if that is your preference. But the point is that the notebook and the pen are always together and always on your person.

The Procedure

  • Date and time your thought.
  • Write it in one simple sentence, or a decent sentence fragment.
  • Only when those two things have been done, and it doesn’t matter how fragmentary your recorded note is, do you then tag on any context, color, or subsidiary thoughts.
  • Don’t worry about handwriting, in fact it is good practice not to even look at the paper while you are jotting. When you open your notebook, don’t try to find the next available page or section of page, just open it at random, give it a quick glance to make sure that you have a clear space to write, and then charge ahead. You can indeed write without looking at what you are doing.
  • You must always try to make sure that nothing gets between the still bubbling thought in your brain and the words on the paper.

The next step, and it can be done quite some time after the actual note taking, is to make a Table of Contents entry.

I number all the pages in my notebook. When the note is done I flip to the first page and on its own line I put down the random page number where I dumped the note. Then, I give it some sort of title so I can refer to it later. A primitive TOC will make finding and using your note a lot easier. Having to flip through dozens of pages looking for something or other is no a good use of your time.

It is really important to get these notes into a more formal record keeping system before they turn into cryptic messages from an alien underworld. So, as soon as you can it is best to put them into your favourite computerized data system, be it Evernote, Zoot, One Note or whatever. It really doesn’t matter what you use as long as you only use one. If you scatter notes across recording systems you will lose them.

For longer notes, or perhaps even full scenes in a book manuscript, you can use a portable voice recorder and then import them as text files using one of the Dragon Naturally Speaking editions that supports transcription, not all do.

Using a voice recorder is superb for describing a location you might want to use in a story, or to get down as much complicated detail that you think you will need.

A variation on that technique is to hit the video button on your phone and visually record your surroundings as you describe the scene.

A different system might be necessary when working right at your computer. It may be best to pop open your database program and type out a note, but be wary that you don’t get shunted down a rabbit hole. I keep my little notebook right next to my mouse, or I reach for the voice recorder.

Remember this at peril of losing your thought; your note taking system has to be one-step simple.

A lot of people have asked me about the idea of learning shorthand for note taking. My answer is, don’t bother.

I learned shorthand as a young reporter and use it still, but it is of limited use to the fiction writer. There are rather simple techniques outlined on the web and in instruction books for what is called Speed Writing and you could look into them if you are interested.

The main thing is, have a way of getting that thought out of your head as quickly as possible, with the least technical effort so you don’t run into this common scenario:

Find app,

Open it,

Menu, select Make New Note   

At which point you forget what the hell your were going to say.

Posted on

The Never Ending Typo Hunt Comes to an End

Although I would like to believe that I have finally killed all of the typographic errors in Cobra Flight, I have a lurking trepidation that they scurry still through the manuscript.

Today, I caught what I believe was the last of them and then started uploading the corrected files to the various book distributors. And of course, nothing in this benighted universe ever seems to work quite right.

After uploading to the likes of Amazon, Kobo, Apple and the many others wouldn’t you know it that I found one last little bastard just as the last of the files were sent.

It took another hour to correct the damn thing and then re-upload everything.

I take solace from what happened when a new edition of the Bible was printed in 1631. It is said to be the most infamous typographic error in history. I don’t need to explain, just have a look at how the Ten Commandments turned out.

For printing this version of the Bible in 1631 the publishers got hit with a gigantic monetary fine. There are 10 copies extant and they are worth a vast sum of money.

These days in journalism there is much complaining about how publishers are firing editors and proofreaders in order to increase profits. And with those complaints come the inevitable moans about how things were much better in the Olde Days.

Well that’s not a new thing. It turns out that after the disaster of the Wicked Bible the Archbishop of Canterbury had this little rant . . .

“I knew the time when great care was had about printing, the Bibles especially, good compositors and the best correctors were gotten being grave and learned men, the paper and the letter rare, and faire every way of the best, but now the paper is nought, the composers boys, and the correctors unlearned.”

Final Note. Sod’s Law dictates that despite my care in writing and the use of a spell checker, there will be a typo in this post.