Sherri Cornelius

Yesterday I went through the printed scenes of my WIP, assessed each one’s viability, and inserted placeholder pages for scenes which were missing. I got about halfway through. By the time I’m finished I hope to have every major plot point mapped in, with plenty of room for fun extras like backstory and worldbuilding. The underworld where my story is set has mushy time, and to convey that uncertain, disjointed time I’m inserting random flashbacks. A lot of those have already been written, but there’s lots of room to be creative there, still. I’m excited.

I mentioned earlier that my editing projects this time are both erotica stories. Now, I’m not a prude by any means, but I am demure. Sex and sexy things are mostly private for me, and while I don’t care if others feel comfortable talking about them, I was interested to see how I would react. It’s funny how un-erotic erotica can be when you’re looking for punctuation errors. I knew I would be fine when I made this note without blushing: “You said where Guy #1′s ____ is, but what about Guy #2′s _____?”

What language to use in my notes is something I’ve wondered about. Do I mirror the language of the story in notes like the one above? It sounds too dirty for a professional. So do I use the correct terminology? Well, that sounds too stiff and uptight (puns intended). So I think it’s cute to use nicknames, like you-know-what and hoo-ha, but that’s not precise enough. I guess I’ll go with correct terminology, since I am a professional, after all, and you can’t go wrong with penis and vulva.

So I printed out my whole novel yesterday. Ever since Maggie stuck some toys down in the printer several years ago, it hasn’t wanted to feed the paper. The last time I printed a novel I had to feed each page by hand, and oh em gee, was that an exercise in tedium. So this time I was like, I’m gonna fix that bad boy before I even start. A few days ago, I took it apart (not easy, I don’t recommend it) and cleaned it thoroughly, made sure all the parts were free, and narrowed down the problem to a smooth roller which wasn’t gripping the paper.

I thought for a while about how I could enhance the gripping power of that roller. Double-stick tape would stick to the paper, too. I could wrap a rubber band around it, but finding one the right size would be tedious. How about if I roughed up the surface of the roller, by scraping it with a steak knife? But then it hit me: rubber cement. Rubber cement is rubbery (hence the name) and dries fast, and if you get it anywhere it shouldn’t be it rubs right off once it’s dry. I didn’t have much faith it would work. It was too easy.

But it did work! Woo! I printed out all my files with only one bad page. I didn’t run out of ink or anything.

I’m really glad I printed it out. I’m a total Scrooge when it comes to the printer. The cartridges are $20, and that’s for crappy remanufactured ones. The kids don’t print except on special occasions. I don’t print my writing. Now I’m thinking I need to do it. I really don’t think electronically. I’ve known for a long time that I work best with my hands, so why not get writing out here in the real world where I have some tactile input? Because I’m a total Scrooge, remember?

Well, no more. The words don’t look the same on a computer screen. I think it may be because I read so many others’ words on the same screen, it lessens the immediate response of my brain to my own words. But when I have my story on a bunch of pages in front of me, mine are the only words there. Also, I can rifle through to find the page I want, instead of having to remember which file it’s in.

I don’t know how much work I’ll be able to do on it today. Today the focus was going to be this Eternal Press story I’m editing, and I was going to do the sorting of pages when I needed a computer break. My sinuses are acting up, though, so I don’t know how much eye time I’ll have. We’ll see how it goes.

My mind is sort of a blank this morning, but I feel like connecting with the world so I’m posting anyway. I apologize in advance for any inanity which may follow.

Over the weekend a couple of my first readers got back to me with comments on my long synopsis. Their advice was right on and exactly what I needed, pointing out things I am too close to see. Really invaluable. I’m sure the rest of my readers will have just as much insight. I’ll do an in-depth report once it’s a done deal, probably by the end of the week.

While I’m waiting to finish my synopsis, I have my editing job to do. Last week I received my next two assignments from Eternal Press. To my surprise, they are both classified as erotica. Now, I’ve never edited erotica before, although I did go through a time when I thought I might be able to write some. (Not.) By the way, the link goes to my old blog because the comments somehow didn’t get imported over here on my older posts. The comments are funny.

So anyway, yeah, I’m editing erotica. So far it’s been very–ahem–interesting. It’s smashing my preconceived notions of erotic literature and bringing to light some personal attitudes which have always operated unseen. Eye-opening, in a number of ways.

On the health front, I found out toothpaste irritates my skin and is probably why my tongue always feels burny. On the other hand, the knuckle on my broken finger popped and I regained some range of motion. I hope this bodes well for having a full recovery.

I pulled all my WIP files to one location and started organizing them. Cuts, backstory, notes, different chunks of chapters, the working doc, 3 different synopses, etc. I’m a very sloppy saver, so my file names are not nearly descriptive enough to immediately know what they are, and also they are saved to two different computers and a backup hard drive. I have the same file name 10 times on 4 different documents. It’s atrocious. If anybody has any thoughts on a better way to organize and evaluate what to save and what to delete, please let me know. If nobody has a better idea, I’ll import all the files into Page Four, see how that works.

Have a great week.

First of all, I’d just like to know who ran over me with a truck while I slept last night. Anyone wanna fess up? I didn’t feel like I worked that hard, so why do I hurt so bad? And of course it’s not the muscles aching, which would indicate some real exercise, only my miserable joints. Ugh.

The weekend blurred all together like one long day. During one waking part of that long day, we dismantled our chain-link fence, only large enough for the tiniest of dogs, and perpetually in the way. It was relatively easy to get apart – not rusted together or anything – and the kids helped by rolling up the fencing and pulling apart the tubes. They even helped carry it all to the junk pile behind the shed. I think I’ll give it away on Freecycle. I wish we’d done it a long time ago. Having that eye sore gone really opens it up, makes the back yard park-like instead of prison-like.

Something else cool that happened this weekend: I got the short story I’m to edit for the final test in my job application with the e-publisher. I’m learning already. Did you know that to create an EM dash in Word, all you have to do is hit Cntrl/Alt/number pad minus? Without that little tidbit, I think you have to find the special characters menu, and blah blah blah. Tedium in spades. Anyway, I send this first round back on June 14. If they publish the story with my edits, they’ll offer me a contract and I’ll start getting royalties on this first story.

You know, I really like knowing all sides of anything I’m involved with. When I worked at Sonic as a teenager, I begged them to teach me every job, even how to clean the grill and make onion rings. The other kids were, like, “Why would you WANT to know how to do more work? Now Derrick will make you do everything.” I didn’t care. I loved knowing all the ins and outs of a drive-in burger joint. I loved being able to do any job in there.

Same thing when I worked at a sewing factory. I took any opportunity to learn a new job at the boss’s request, and sometimes pestered people to let me practice on their machines at break times. The jobs I couldn’t physically do, I watched and learned. And with every boyfriend I ever had, I took on his interests. That’s how I learned about meteorology, and how to work on cars, and basic woodworking, and how to process marijuana into smokeable form (something I could have lived without knowing).

I guess that’s why I enjoy Deadliest Catch and How It’s Made, and not so much Survivor or The Bachelor. It’s why I used to explore abandoned houses as a kid, and ask strangers unusual questions as an adult. I just want to know, is all.

I wish you all a happy, good week.