The importance of printouts.

I'm proof-reading. That means that the Spanish version of my children's anthology, "The Seer's Stone" has been laid out ready for printing, and I'm going through it with a fine tooth comb, looking for mistakes.

 Actually, it's the second time through. I found a worrying number of mistakes last time. Mostly (I hasten to add) stuff like extra/missing spaces, and capitalising words which would be capitalised in English, but which shouldn't be in Spanish. But still far more of them then I expected.

So I'm doing it all again. Now, for some reason, human beings catch far more mistakes on paper than a computer screen. So it's quite important that the final checks are done looking at a printout.

So naturally my printer has died. But of course!

Semi-crastinating

I've managed enough baby steps that now half the stories are in the "Done" folder, along with all the shorter texts, like "About the Artists" and "Acknowledgements". So the book won't be going to the printer's while I'm away, and I'll be astonished if it goes to layout, but it is at least moving.

And now I'm busy dealing with all the little jobs I've been putting off, trying to get as many as possible done before I leave. Things like helping prepare a press release for an upcoming anthology I'm in, and shortening the straps on my sun-dresses and getting posts for http://lapalma-island.com scheduled for while I'm away, and paying my accountant.

Re-crastination

Yeah, I slowed right down again. Partly due to that pesky business of earning money.

So I'd better go back to work and get another baby step out of the way.

Anti-crastination

I'm finally getting on with the final touches to the Spanish version of my children's anthology of stories about La Palma's amzing sky and history. It's as though I've learned to stop being a procrastinator.

Does that make me an anti-crastinator?

S l o w P r o g r e s s . . .

So at long last my brain's started working again (mostly) and I've found out how to punctuate dialogue in Spanish. Two pages down, 134 to go. [Sigh] At least I'm moving again. Even if I still don't have my books from the printers.

Not going too well

I got very tired and I had to stop everything non-essential for a while. The English version of my new book is taking longer than usual at the printers, because it landed in the middle of a reorganisation. Meanwhile, I'm still working on the translation. And I've just found out that I've been doing it wrong. In Spanish, you punctuate the dialogue in a completely different way. So I'm going to have to go back and do it all again. Take a deep breath and start again...