Nitty-Gritty

The stage of the schoolteacher book is getting down to the nitty-gritty. I’m finding myself aware of each nuance and page set-up and focusing less on content of pages.
I have referred to this book as Stories of a Public Schoolteacher. I have come up with a better title (I think), but plan to keep that title as a subtitle. However in looking at it, it occurred to me that the adjective “Public” describes the school, not the teacher. When I previously looked up the spelling of schoolteacher, it was all one word. But that puts Public modifying schoolteacher and not the type of school I want the reader to think of. So I’m going to divide that word so that Public describes the school and I guess school will describe the type of teacher? Public School Teacher.
I’m also making sure each chapter begins at the same line on each page. That’s a tedius task. Font type and size are being monitored. One revision left a blank page between chapters and I deleted that blank page .
I’m cutting the word count and all the notes I made at the bottom of each chapter out of the book, but I’m saving them as notes in the book’s folder just in case for some reason I want to refer back to them. It’s hard to tear your writing apart, but necessary.
Believe it or not, once in awhile I find a phrase or paragraph that I can rephrase better and I’m stopping to do that. I wrote each chapter over the years. I edited them repeatedly. Since I’ve put them in the kdp format, I’ve proofread and edited every chapter twice. Now I am close to uploading the formated document to the site and I think designing the cover is next. I really can’t remember. I have published two other books this way, so I know kdp will guide me through the steps.
Once all these things are done, I’ll order a Proof copy to check that it’s perfect. I suppose I’ll need to read every word on every page again. I feel like I have the book memorized. Many things have prepared me to be a writer and my four years working part-time for ECU News Bureau as a proofreader while I went to college certainly trained me in the art of proofreading. No one ever said it was fun. Back then I hadn’t written the articles, and it was fun to read them word for word, looking for errors that I seldom found. We had excellent writers. I always knew what was going on on campus each week because of the articles I proofread.
I’ve always been a writer. I just didn’t earn enough money doing it to survive. I found myself as a single mother with three children (I was married when I had them), and as the sole provider. I had to work every day, forty hours (or more when I was teaching) per week while also trying to be a good mother. Sometimes I worked a second part-time job. In the summer I worked various jobs. One summer I was a construction worker. That job came through the school system as we prepared to partner with a construction group in the town. Most summers I worked in the education field.
But many times I’d sit down and write either in the mornings on the weekend or in the evenings after work. I saved many of the things I wrote. I submitted some of them and had publications in various magazines and newspapers.
I’ve taken many writing courses. My last one was James Patterson’s online writing course, which is very good, but is also when I realized I already knew everything he was teaching. I was ready to sink or swim.
It took a couple more years until I had retired from teaching to begin looking at book publication. At my age, I do not have time to play the “find a publisher/find an agent” game. I’ve tried that before and it’s very frustrating. I’m self-publishing and so far have enjoyed it.
I do not enjoy the nitty-gritty of checking for mistakes and knowing I’ll still overlook some. I’m doing my best.
When the proof copy comes back, I’ll look one more time and then hit the button that says PUBLISH! I hope it’s well received. It’s the kind of book you can read out of order and you can even skip a chapter, if you think that subject won’t interest you. I hope every word on every page gets read. I’ve certainly read them all many times, ha, ha.
As dull as this part of publishing is, it’s still necessary. I’ll plod along and maybe by the new year (good BYE 2020!) I’ll be ready to hit that PUBLISH button.

Second Edit Is Done!

I am pleased to say that the second edit of my schoolteacher stories book has been done. I also did the Dedication, Acknowledgements, and About the Author page. I was able to put in headers.

My next step is to go through and tidy of the copy. I have notes and word counts, dates last viewed, etc. at the bottom of each chapter.

I’m trying to figure out how to eliminate a blank page or two. I also have one troublesome page that ends a chapter, but for some reason wants to put itself mid page where the chapters each begin. I have to figure out how to fix that.

I watched a few kdp videos on different techniques, but I still have questions I will need to find answers for.

But, the book is done! Now getting it in publishable mode and designing a cover is all that’s left.

It’s a good feeling to know that so much of the work is done. I realize what’s left are things I don’t know how to do, but I’ve found that I can usually find solutions. Some take longer than others.

I would love to see this book published and ready to read by the end of this year. That’s my goal. I’ve found I tend to set very ambitious goals so I can’t promise anything, but I can try.

This is the longest book I’ve written yet. It’s 164 pages. The revised version of my Teacher’s Guide to Black History Lessons will be at least a hundred pages, but that’s my next project. It would be awesome to have that one available for purchase by the end of January since February is Black History Month.

Schools are continuing to struggle to meet in person. The Pandemic is ongoing and worsening, and I have no idea how receptive teachers will be to my revised black history book, but it’s almost ready as well. I’ve focused the last few months on my schoolteacher stories book.

I hope everyone out there is happy writing! If you’re stuck at home, why not work on that writing project you haven’t had time to pursue?

The Good, The Bad, and The Mundane

Writing is a job. It can be a calling or a desire. It can be necessary or done for pleasure, but it’s more than just sitting down to write when inspired.
A friend recently asked me about writing and if it was better to write daily by a word count method or by a time set method. I told him I just wrote when inspired, but that’s not completely true.
Yesterday I spent my writing time editing a chapter of the Stories of a Public Schoolteacher book. For me, since I hadn’t looked at that chapter since September of this year, the mistakes were glaring. One thing I try not to do as a writer is repeat the same words in sentences that are side by side. I found myself quickly seeing those. I found grammatical errors and even spelling errors. I questioned the usage of one word and looked up its definition. I’m sure there are things I still missed and that’s why at least two more proofreading/editing sessions are planned before I self-publish this book.
When you publish through a book publisher, they have editors and proofreaders, cover designers, marketers . . . all those helpful people who work to make your book a success. When you self-publish, you are all those people.
For me, the editing and proofreading is the mundane part of writing, but it is necessary. I can also do that whether inspired or not because I’m just cleaning up already written work that I’ve done.
The good is when I’m inspired, no one else has claim to my time, and I can sit down and get the words typed as quickly as possible. I seldom, if ever, edit as I write. I’ll go back later for that. I do make notes such as “ck. sp.” to be sure I’ve spelled a word correctly or “ck. def.” to be sure what I’ve written means what I think it means.
The bad is when I want to write and something prevents it, or when I begin to write and the spark just isn’t there. That’s why I cannot write by the time limit. My muse has to be with me. I was able to write papers in college, but my desire for a good grade muse sat right beside me and inspired me, ha, ha.
I have other muses that show up from time to time and that’s how I know which project I’ll be working on. If no muse shows up, or if I have free time, I do the edit/proofreading part of writing.
I guess no job is a complete “this is fun; I’m having a good time doing it” situation. However, there should be that in every occupation, or you’re not doing what you were meant to do. Follow your interests and you’ll enjoy your life’s work.
However, expect the good, the bad, and the mundane because that’s what I’ve found in every employment situation . . . even as a self-employed writer.