uggghhhh

[telophase]

myrialux gave me a cold for my birthday. worst present evar.

Haven’t posted for a while, but I am not currently dead, although the past couple of days I have felt like death. Bah. I lay down to try to take a nap but my brain is just awake enough not to sleep though my body is exhausted.

Got my third copy editing run through DEADFALL done before I got too tired to brain yesterday, and I use far too many commas. I keep taking them out and there are STILL MORE. I even made the DRASTIC CHOICE to not do Oxford commas* because there were TOO DAMN MANY COMMAS and frankly if this is published traditionally, the choice of them or not is going to be down to house style anyway, and I really don’t care. I have, I believe, three semicolons in 130K words, probably overshadowed by the 5 or so colons, and the 3 pairs of parentheses, which look awkward but if I replace them with commas the section gets weird. It’s more than halfway through the book so their mere presence won’t cause people to think I’m a terrible grammarian. I did replace a LOT, but not all, of m-dashes with commas during these past three runs—I love m-dashes (spelled that way or em-dashes) but there’s a limit to how many I can get away with.

Anyway feel free to give me links to happy/funny things, but don’t be too concerned if I don’t reply because I have just burned all my energy typing all that. Blaaaaaarg

*”You are now dead to me.” —myrialux, upon being informed of this fact.

Sent from my Apple ][e

Comments

[misbegotten]

I don't have an Oxford comma icon, so you get this one instead.

[affreca]

Commas are so loveable, though.

I feel you on feeling like death. Lawnchair gave me his cold, which I have been fighting since Wednesday. Hopefully we both feel better soon!

[adafrog]

{{{hugs}}}

[jenett]

Hah, on the commas and the semi-colons.

(As telophase knows, I do not use semi-colons. Though at this point, I think I inserted maybe two this year of my own accord? Everything else is because of an editorial comment from someone else.)

I hope the cold retreats and you feel better pronto.

[mme_n_b]

Despite the Oxford comma thing I wish you a happy New Year and submit this newsletter for your consideration: https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews/

[selenite0]

I hope the cold goes away soon with no aftereffects.

We need to work out a comma exchange. My editor keeps threatening to give me a box of commas for Christmas, but spared me yet again.