Blizzard?

[jhetley]

Well, it's windy. And it's cold, around 0 F. But _SO FAR_ they've only tossed some flakes around, maybe an inch or two. This would be a guess, because of the wind -- I can still see bare pavement in our driveway, and both cars are clear, but drifts lurk in every lee....

We'll see what proceeds in the process.

Speaking of processes, I am nearly two-thirds through the nearly-last pass on DRAGON'S TEETH. Major problem so far is one of those MS Word bastard formatting things, where I can't get a page break to work right. Either have a blank page between chapters, or the start of a chapter at the bottom of the end of the one before. Maybe I ought to install that copy of WordPerfect that Older Son gave me. "Reveal Codes" carries much mojo in a case like this.

Comments

[ziactrice.livejournal.com]

Are you defining each chapter as a separate section, or not? Sometimes, I've used that to help me force a pagebreak where I want, not where silly MSWord kept wanting to stick it.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I'm not geek enough to even understand what you're asking. The whole novel is one file, merged from the separate chapter files after I got to second draft stage. Chapters end in hard page breaks. Page numbering is continuous, in a header with the title and author name -- standard manuscript format.

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

Are you using CTRL+Enter to force page breaks?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I use the pull-down menu rather than keystroke combinations. The page break is there, just somehow screwed up by the fact that the last sentence is at the end of a natural page. I've added a blank line at the start of the chapter and _now_ flow over into that blank page I'd been getting before.

Just trying to screw the inscrutable, you know. This problem probably would never have shown up if I didn't use two different printers with two different ideas of what 12 pt. Courier* double-spaced means. Makes a difference of 50 pages on a 500 page manuscript, with the same Word file. And they're both HP lasers, too.

*Okay, so one is Courier and one is Courier New -- and neither printer has both fonts....

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

My suggestions:

1. Turn on the "show format codes" (there should be a paragraph symbol somewhere on the bar at the top of the MSWord window--click on it--most codes that will show up are arrows for tab marks, little dots for spaces, and the paragraph marks for carrier returns)

2. (the pull-down menu and keystroke combinations produce the same result -- I just got used to keystroke combinations with Word Perfect eons ago). After you've inserted your forced page break, if it has caused a blank page between the end of the chapter and the beginning of a new chapter, delete the carrier returns after the end of the last chapter (including the one at the end of the last paragraph of the chapter, if necessary). Often, what causes that blank page to show up is one annoying little carrier return too many.

I hope you can pummel the formatting demons into submission. I'm looking forward to increasing the size of your royalty check once you publish. :-)

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Interesting. _With_ that "show format" on, deleting the carriage return worked. Previously I'd deleted the period and carriage returns until I got to the centered chapter number of the next chapter, deleted the letters to either side of the break I wanted, then retyped everything without CR but with the page break, and ended up back where I was before. Prior to that, I'd backspaced until I took the period away, then typed the period and entered the page break, no CR. Same business.

I think I may need to sprinkle some holy water on the computer.

Nice about the royalty check, but this book is the second one in queue. DRAGON'S EYE comes out this fall, no date set for DRAGON'S TEETH as yet.

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

Can't help much with MS Word - but just so you know, there was plenty of blizzard for us flatlanders in the Boston area. I got about two feet of powder, with lots of pretty drifts.

The only real problem was that the cable (and thus the cable modem) was out for most of the day.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Hope you got cable back in time for the Patriot's game....

Yeah, we heard about the stuff down in Boston and out on the Cape -- up to 24" of new snow even up into southern Maine. But the evening news gave our official snowfall at 4". I don't know how the hell they measured it, with winds 20 to 30 mph all day.

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

Hope you got cable back in time for the Patriot's game....
Yep.

Not that it mattered so much to me - I'm an odd duck who doesn't actually have cable television. Just a cable modem - and I wouldn't even have that if I was close enough to the Verizon central office to get DSL.