C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 131

And Jane has taken up blog-posting again!

She has.  THere is light at the end of the tunnel.

Intruder is now available for pre-order: check out your outlets.

There's a lot going on.

By agreement with DAW, the Foreigner series is going into DAW e-book, which means available for Kindle and Nook.

And Audible is now mid-production with an audio version of Cyteen.

 

Today is a much nicer day…

I simply had to run a bag of kitteh poo to the vet in the snow before breakfast, but hey, it's far ahead of yesterday.

[Shu came to us with passengers. We're on the road toward fixing the problem.]

2:27pm local, and we have been dealing with this malware since 5:00am…

…and still are not done.

When you use your computer as Jane does, to go out and visit some sites that offer what could be real nice stuff useful in re-making the website—or could be a come-on for nefarious purposes—you have to go in protected; but this one got past Avast. We are currently using another program to go after it—and Avast fought us loading that seek-and-destroy-the-malware program tooth and nail. At one point Jane couldn't get on her computer; at another, she was there, on our aux computer, but it locked—and when you're dealing with somebody as absolutely exhausted as we are after the great copyediting foulup—we are ready to explode. The poor cats were aware of the tension, so they were exploring every attention-getting ploy they had, including walking on the keyboard of the computer we had finally gotten to run the scan—and turning it off, after 2 hours of scanning. ("Buts, ma,–Ize pertikular-ly gud at findin' bugs. I huntz 'em reel gud. I wuz lookin' for it…I'da et it 4 u if Id' found it…")

done—about 300 megs worth of files—sent!

Supper awaits.

Plus we re-fi'ed the house today. Saving 100 a month ain't bad.

We are running on a computer-event schedule—ie, we're going to be late…

But we do not, at least, intend to put out a buggy beta—

Re the update to Closed Circle promised for the 13th, you will have noticed several events that have thrown us a bit behind: the unanticipated galleys; my computer failure; loss of five days on that while I'm trying to write on a 2000-vintage computer that doesn't have a control interface I'm used to; the unanticipated galley crisis and, the day I get the computer fixed—Jane discovers the problem in the galleys, runs the conversion that gets the PDF comparison so we know what we're into; then the total line-by-line re-do; the sudden discovery of a major bit I hadn't written the scene for; Jane's diversion from work on the site to help me get Chernevog in shape—her editing has been beyond brilliant—she read between the lines and got me to provide info the reader definitely needs, so this book will be so improved—and everything else that has gone on—then figuring how to get that color comparison scanned and into my editor's hands along with the revised files, so we can make schedule—which just takes mega-time to shepherd through the machinery and make e-mails and send, because it's huge and needs to be broken up. Then I have to add the 'yellow' color marker for the changes I will accept, and she has to redo all of that. Which she does cheerfully…

Let me tell you what Jane WAS doing from September 30 to now, before my work landed on her: learning a new 'theme' architecture in WordPress, equivalent of learning a new graphics program; doing all the graphics for the site, right down to images for backgrounds, logos, the things that make the site look good; and run well; doing new covers for at least 6-7 new books and reworking twenty others; revising the payment procedure; totally rewriting the site; reorganizing; making the site display correctly; doing new buttons; new arrangement/structure, down to how many pixels to make the border of the framing box, that level of minutiae—plus working on various books, helping me edit, taking down the Halloween decor, helping with records, tax reports, banking/accounting, and the whole home refi procedure, and helping me keep the house in physical order, plus winterizing the pond and yard, plus running various conversions, and I know I'm not remotely conveying it all: she gets up at 4 and gets to sleep at midnight: it's that kind of work load, a lot of which involves writing to the authors of some of the software we use and getting technical answers or in some instances new little 'features' on those programs … she is absolutely exhausted. We are both real tired; and we have sworn once we do decorate for Christmas, it isn't coming down until the spring decor goes up.

So thank you, Jane.

I'm through the galleys…well, sort of the galleys..

The compare-write helped maintain my sanity. I'll send them in multiple e-mails to NY: the file-size is in megs, multiple, because it's 241 images.

What is not in dispute is in black type. Where it is disputed, what I wrote is in struck-out blue, what she wrote is in red, and what she wrote that I don't approve is circled (most); and what I do approve is in yellow. Most every page of 241 has about 8 circles and maybe one yellow blotch. Not to mention the stupid compare-write program, otherwise excellent, strikes out in blue and renders in red letters ANY hyphenated word. It's a real nest of snakes.

I have told Betsy I am going to send her also a) a completely clean file b) a completely clean file with the acceptable changes already inserted. There exists a massive distrust between editors and writers about control of that input process: but as I told Betsy, when I have said I am GOING to put in changes she knows I routinely don't like (gray for grey, etc) I will do it by the style sheet, and if there were any instance I wasn't going to do it, I would tell her, specifically. We've worked together since the '70′s, so she knows I'll do as I say. My editor doesn't have that length of experience, and so I imagine they'll talk about it, and I hope they'll just use what I send rather than trying to input it: the potential for mistakes is huge if you don't know your way through that manuscript, and I do.

So…….nearly done. What a week!

 

 

good news/bad news

The good news—I have a keyboard and the problem had not corrupted any data.

The bad news—I got to work on the Intruder galleys again and realized when I read a sentence I NEVER would have written that the copyeditor had seriously messed with the text—

Jane, bless her, figured how to get a PDF converted to a Word Perfect file (using 'copy' and notepad, I think) and we were thus able to run compare-write to see what damage had been done: universal, pernicious, information-changing, conversion of Cajeiri's 'tone' to Business English, meddling with Bren's 'voice', and changing the political outlines of the aishidi'tat by deciding to capitalize things and make them districts, changing the word 'clan' to district, and those are only small samples of what this person did on every single page.

Betsy Wollheim, bless her, is horrified, and will stand behind my corrections, but I now have 241 singlespaced pages to go through and view all the corrections (red ink) that number about 8 per page, and sometimes involve having to rethink the politics involved, or to recall why I made a particular word choice — and I know, or I would have used some other word—and do things that just play hob with my concentration on the current book. You all know what a hellish time I have had this year getting this book going, and why—and I had FINALLY gotten on a roll—

Now this. I could spit nails.

The repair person didn't show…

…I could forgive him if he'd had the courtesy to call. He said Tuesday he'd definitely be here wWednesday, and I'm still waiting.  I don't like to get a guy in trouble—but a phone call? I think I'm owed that, since I said I' stay home Wednesday waiting for him—I think Dell is going to hear about this one.

 

The new keyboard is in Spokane…a good thing…

since so am I.

But this borrowed machine is a touchpad, which drives me crazy, and I finally got in to the odl machine and copied all 200 password combos so I can remember them—something I should have done. But thi s has thrown us for a loop schedule-wise. Here we are working on, simultaneously, 1)the new book, on which I have had serious trouble since Jane got sick, and I was just finally making progress. 2) in come the galleys for Intruder, which have to be done by the 10th, 4) working on getting Chernevog in final edit and doing the covers

While 1) Jane was simultaneously doing the 3 new Rusalka series covers,  plus revisions of all our prior covers, plus 2) Closed C ircle design, and helping me do a new edition of Rusalka text, 3) and hellpingand doing all the html work, and trying to get her Netwalkers books into new editions,…….

and my computer died, when I was the one supposed to do the kitchen cleanup, the construction cleanup, the restoration of tools to where they belong (if you wonder about the typing, it's because the text runs off the display of this version of the site given by this older computer…) and meanwhile we haven't gotten the Christmas decorations up—we may officially postpone Christmas, but then we already have our prezzies —the saws, and Seishi—

and Jane is working non-stop—she got one hour of sleep last night—and fraying at the edges, while I'm trying not to screw up my good run at this book and remember where I am and my galleys are stuck on the other computer, which I daren't run much because of the screwed-up keyboard—who knows what I'm punching… I cook and I clean, Jane does html, and we're just exhausted. Lynn's similarly bhind, not to mention some damned jerk threw all the apartment complex poolside furniture in the pool an since she works with the condo assocaition, it's her problem; she's looking for a guy with scuba gear, I'm looking for my keyboard, deadlines are looming, Jane just wants some sleep, and we are all certifiably crazy.