Two Completely Unrelated Things

This lovely bloom is, to my way of thinking, as pretty as many an orchid or fancy tulip. Pale chartreuse petals, flamed with orange -- and a mop of cream colored -- what are those? Anthers? Stamens? Whatever -- it's a gorgeous flower. And just now, the forest floor is littered with them -- the blossoms of the tall tulip poplar trees that grow in such profusion here.

That was one thing.

Here's another: A few posts back, Merisi asked who was responsible for incorporating all the changes from the edited manuscript into an electronic copy. I didn't know and emailed my editor -- who also didn't know for sure. ( She knew that she didn't want to do it and I knew that I for sure didn't.) But Herself promised to find out and get back to me.

Monday morning, true to her word, here came the email -- a forward from one of the folks in the Production department who said: "The compositor does it. I think they contract the work out. It used to be housewives in Pennsylvania, but now I think they send it overseas."

I find this fascinating. What are those Pennsylvania housewives doing now -- are they greeters at Wal-Mart? massage therapists? mystery writers?

And where 'overseas' are these outsourced compositors? I guess an in-depth knowledge of English wouldn't actually be necessary -- all the compositor really has to do is understand the proofreading marks (something I'm still working on.)

Further proof that it takes a village to turn out a book.

It's BAA-ACK!

. . . all 401 pages of The Day of Small Things came Fed-Exing back into my life yesterday afternoon.

I'd just returned from a trip to town -- P.O., bank, recycling center, grocery, and a cup of coffee with the blogger known as estaminet -- who is in the area visiting family and is as charming as her blog.

Before I'd even unloaded the groceries or fed the dogs (it was past the sacred four o'clock chow time, they kept telling me), I had to get into the package and flip through the pages, in shameless search for Herself's words of blue ink praise.

There were a gratifying number of them -- as well as some very nice comments from the copy editor (in red pencil). And evidently, no major changes called for, no more of those 'Flat!' warnings or exhortations to 'Milk it!' -- meaning to stretch an exciting moment even farther.

Now I have to settle down to the painstaking task of reading every word as if I'd never seen it before in an attempt to catch typos and the like. I have to consider carefully if I've phrased things as well as I might, if Miss Birdie sounds like Miss Birdie, if Calven sounds like a modern day teenager.

I have to polish this baby till it shines and I have to get it back to Herself by June 22. Very doable, since as I said, there don't seem to be any major changes called for.

Oh, I know a few places where I'd like to insert a paragraph or two but on the whole, as I buzzed through the pages last night in search of every last blue ink comment, I kept thinking, "Hey! This is pretty good! Ooh, that was a nice bit there. Wow! Did I write that? Cool!"

Now, a few weeks past the major re-do of the story, I'm able to appreciate the new shape of the novel without thinking about the part I removed. And I can honestly say -- "Yep, I'm right pleased with Birdie's book!"