It's a flying blog visit from me this week, as I have meetings at what feels like every minute of the day, book proofs to read, an index to put together, a backlog of reviews as long as the M5 to write and a graduation ceremony to attend. Oh, and I do teach now and then . . .
The book proofs have been ever so exciting, as it's my first solo flight as an author – previously I've either co-edited or been in edited collections. So when a courier delivered them into my hands, I did rip the package open with rather indecent haste. And what emerged was starting to look like a book, with snazzy lists and fancy graphics – and the words wot I wrote!
Since then, with the assistance of my retired schoolteacher mother, who has a scary eye for detail, we've been reading through and trying to collar the errors and I've been resisting the temptation to squawk loudly, throw the whole lot up in the air and demand a wholescale rewrite.
There are still some wibbles with the graphics to be resolved. Both a newspaper and a magazine article are going to be reproduced in the book. The former happily sent over an electronic version; the latter for some reason wouldn't play ball, so we're working from a not top-quality photocopy, which is rather annoying.
But I'm encouraged by the fact the copy editor didn't have too many queries, and the proof reader just half a page of glitches to iron out. And it all seems much more real now. Or will do when I've done the index. I said I'd do it on the grounds that bad indexes drive me bonkers, and how difficult can it be to do one. I have a very nasty feeling I may soon find out that it's not as easy as it looks. So if anyone has any tips, please send them my way!
Now, excuse me while I head off to the graduation ceremony for last year's students. I’ll be the one glowing with pride when my luvvies step up to receive their degrees. Yes, I shall be wearing a silly hat and gown. I hope to avoid a repeat of last year's incident where I put my hat on, it fell over my eyes, and the bloke from the company who supply the robes informed me that it looked like "a bleedin' wastepaper basket!" Moral: never let an English Literature professor armed with a strip of paper and a six-inch ruler measure your head.
