…and yes, Protector has flown to NYC….
In the real old days, you took your carbon copy and put it in a safe place, found a stout box for your 20 lb bond typescript, [heavier with the weight of 3 bottles of dried correction fluid] and went to the post office, applying a green Notify Me card for a fee, and as much insurance as you could, because it would take you 3 months to retype it—as well as the postage, and plastered it with return addresses of all sorts; plus, inside the box, the return label and postage should it be shipped back for correction or (gasp!) rejected though under contract.
You then sweated it for a week until the green card came to tell you it had actually been received. Because otherwise you were going to have to spend 3 months retyping it. I had one that was lost 3 times.
In the medium old days, you took your 20 lb bond typescript to the copy office, refusing to leave it to be copied, and just letting people needing just a few copies ‘play through’ while you tried to remember where you were and sweated whether you’d pulled page 158 from the glass before surrendering the machine to the gal with the party invitations to run. You usually got about 20 interruptions before you reached page 425 and finished the copy…unless you had to call the technician to relieve a paper jam or load more ink. Then you collated it, neatened it up, put it in a box, and kept your original. You paid 10 cents a page for those copies, so you forked over 42.50 for the copy, and went to the post office where you got the green card and the insurance for maybe 100.00, so that you’d be compensated about 60.00 if you had to go another day like today, and likewise mailed it off…to your agent, who would laboriously copy it and deliver it to the publisher, and other interested parties, like a UK publisher. And you got another copy charge from the agent.
Then there was Fedex. But they weren’t immune. One book package got ripped open and random pages strewn all over NYC. By then we had our own copier, and ran duplicate copies, so one copy went to the agent and one to the publisher.
Now—I attach a file to letters to my agent and my publisher…who will later ask for transmission of yet another electronic file, because they will probably lose that one or not be able to convert it to Word. Dunno why I can and they can’t, but I will, when they ask.
Times change, but you still feel terribly at loose ends when you’ve shipped one off.
In the old days, you got a new box of carbon paper and a frighteningly blank box (not packet, box) of 20 lb bond. And inserted 2 sheets with carbon, and started typing.
Now—the white space is infinite, so you write something down to anchor the project in space and time and try to get going.
I’d sorta like to go out to eat to celebrate, but we’re trying to cut back on food. Sigh.
Hurrah! That is good news. Please have a slice (or two) of virtual cake (with extra frosting) almost as good as the real thing and only 10% of the calories.
congrats ! Isn’t it nice when technology actually helps? I’m in IT, so when I read stuff like this I think … shouldn’t the publisher have a secure upload site for things like this ?? … shouldn’t the file be encrypted?? …etc.
Congratulations and condolences all in one!
I don’t know if this would count as celebratory food, but is there anywhere near you where you can lay your hands on really, really fresh berries or early fruit? (I have no idea what comes into season in your area.)
Because I have discovered that freshly picked berries, sun warmed and delivered to me by my beloved child, are pretty dang festive *grin*
But in our area we’ve had strawberries for ages and the dewberries or blackberries (no one can agree on WHAT they are other than yummy) are beginning to ripen. In another week I will be able to make home made berry pie.
The only sad bit is that home made berry pie marks the beginning of summer weather for us in the South. (Summer being punishing hot for me, it’s my least favorite season.)
Mine too, when I was in the South: heat—ugh. OTOH, I have several strawberry plants growing on the back side of the water fall, and it makes weeding in that area downright pleasant. Strawberries still warm from the sun and perfectly ripe are a treat.
Right now, though, the magnolia just burst into bloom today, and the redbud is giving it a good try in its second year. We’ve not yet seen the dogwood and the full-sized cherry, though the weeping one in back, in a protected area, is getting its best bloom ever.
I remember expeditions with the parents to pick quart after quart of berries (strawberries from the U-pick fields, blackberries, dewberries and black raspberries from the powerline right of ways and other clear cuts). Pies were rare, because Mom waylaid 90% of the blackberry clones to turn into jam. Strawberries usually ended up in bowls on the table with whipped cream, although we ate almost as many as we picked in the fields.
Where I am now, the neighbor’s tree is just starting to shell us with the annual offering of mangoes. I saw them reach through the fence with their mango picker (a hooked basket on the end of a LONG pole) to snag downed mangoes from our yard. I was tempted to ask them if they could also clean up the trash their tree dumps in our yard; I’m willing to accept leaves, buggy mangoes and branches as trade for free good mangoes, but if no freebies are forthcoming…!
I hear ya.
Does anyone *know* what the difference is between dewberries and blackberries?? I’ve been researching it as I can but even my local agricultural offices can’t give me specifics that make sense.
Aja Jin, no kidding, it took me half a decade to argue the point that they really needed to computerize; and the spread sheet/scheduling system was a little file box with paperclips—that actually worked just as well as it does now with computers. Printing didn’t work that well, however: they completely retyped everything from the paper copy, not the computer file. After a good deal of pleading, I was delivering my files directly to the printers at one point, and wasn’t supposed to talk to them—protocols, y’know—so I just embedded the things the printers urgently needed to know in order to interpret my files’ quote marks and italics at the very top of my file, along with my phone number. I’d get calls, we’d talk briefly, understand each other, and it worked, producing far fewer errors than having my perfectly fine typescript retyped from scratch by people in places who used upside down question marks, as happened on one occasion. The publishing industry is so arcane and crazy it still amazes me. But DAW was one of the first to modernize—read: get computers.
I remember a story in Analog, oh, maybe 30 years ago in which a publisher/editor got a story submission, read it and then took it to a buddy in the next office to read. He had to point out to the buddy, why it was strange–although typescript it has even margins, and that just wasn’t possible without an insane amount of work in the ’50’s. So he went to visit the author, knowing she was a time traveller. Busted! 😉 It was obviously after some personal computers were out, but we weren’t that far from the “Electric Pencil” age.
Exquisite happy dance! I am still waiting for the library to produce my copy of Betrayer (it is en route, even as we speak, and will bounce other things out of its way on my TBR pile), thence to be followed by Intruder, and at some point down the road, Protector.
Your series got a very nice nod in review over at Tor.com.
Mazel Tov! A little wine won’t break the diet, will it?
Not-at-all!
Also, today, I got a listen to the http://www.audible.com version of Cyteen. It’s a first-class rendition, non-abridged, 5 parts each around 7 hours listening. That’ll keep one company on long commutes!
This is the UK link: http://www.audible.co.uk/pd/?source_code=ASUDisc1Bk0001WS041112&asin=B007IVZ9HS
This is the US link: http://www.audible.com/pd/?source_code=ASRDG0001WS041112&asin=B007IJQ6U4
I remember the night I printed out my finished, ~220 page PhD thesis on my ink jet printer on high quality bond paper, in the “medium” old days (1995). I was paranoid the entire night that something would happen to it. It was early fall and a skunk wandered fragrantly by the bedroom window. I woke up in a wild panic thinking that the house was on fire (never had that association of skunk=smoke before or since). “What if the thesis burns up?!” Didn’t relax until I made the required two (I think it was) additional copies done (by me) at the local Kinko’s and the main thesis accepted by the hands of the stern hands of the Moirae: the ladies behind the grad school office counter who checked your thesis for the required margin sizes, etc.
My 90s nightmare was when I spent an entire evening typing up my medieval history paper (that was my major). Somewhere about 10p.m., after I apparently did something very foolish, I looked up and saw that the only thing remaining of my almost-completed paper was the final period. Urp. Gone from memory, gone from the disk. Still have no idea what I did.
Soooo…I spent all night re-typing it. After lunch the next day, I had a little free time before the last section of my Roman history class. The one where you could miss two sessions for free, but would get a serious grade drop for three. And I had missed two. And I fell asleep in the sun on the Arts Quad and slept right through the class. No mercy from the professor. A year or so later I was interviewing for a job with a guy who seemed very familiar. Turned out his brother was the no-mercy professor. Didn’t get the job, either.
Ow! That smarts.
I had one of those martinet high school English teachers who required perfection on every page, and every page hand-written with exact margins. One mistake, and you had to discard that page. A single mistake would void the entire 30 page paper. Being a total fool, I waited until the night before to do my ‘fair copy.’
I ended up at 3 in the morning with cotton separating my stressed-out fingers and tape holding the pen rigidly in place. Fouled another page. Re-do. Re-do. Re-do. I finally got it all done. No, at that point nothing befell it. But I went to sleep the few hours left of the night with my hand wrapped in ice, and ever since then, I cannot bear long handwriting sessions. It starts to hurt, and then I lose a bit of fine control.
I don’t blame the teacher: it was my misjudgement that left it til the last minute. And it was part of a system of discipline that made me what I am, and enabled me to understand certain ancient systems with particular insight, so I don’t say I wish it were different. But I do think of that woman every time I have to do a long autograph session.
Life is way too short if turning in a completed novel for publication can’t justify a little self caloric indulgence! break out the champagne and pound cake! or whatever is the best thing you can celebrate with. Huckleberry slump? you both deserve it.
They don’t have you login and upload files via FTP? Or something of the kind? But…but…but…. Oh, good heavens. …And yet I should not be surprised.
That “upside-down question mark” meant an unrecognized special character. … Which means different programs or platforms. Oh my. …Retyped, when you’d sent a computer file…a publishing house, you’d think they’d have the major word processors plus (at that time) PageMaker…. :: headdesk ::
I am presuming that was in the 1990’s, but even so…wow. Er, we didn’t have everything when I worked as a small business graphic designer / desktop publisher (meaning, armed with a Mac and higher-end laser printer) but…in many ways, it sounds like I was better equipped in the 80’s and 90’s than that publisher. Yowza.
It’s no wonder the major publishers are having trouble with ebooks.
(And in case that publisher or others are reading, I’m not trying to bash them. I also know how much money our small business sank into software and hardware to stay competitive and be able to serve customers. There’s that and the time to train oneself while handling workload.)
—–
Well, anyway, what great news the ms. is shipped off to the publisher!
I haven’t yet listened to the audio version of Cyteen, but I will soon. 🙂
We’re rapidly approaching full summer here. We’ve had a slightly milder spell, which is welcome. My second annual attempt at gardening appears to be going well enough, not great, but reasonably well. I’ll be happy if I get homegrown tomatoes. The basil’s fine and the marigolds are thriving. There are signs the grass is growing back after last year’s prolonged drought. This is very welcome.
I have some serendipitous squash vines growing in my compost heap, from a kabocha pumpkin whose pulp got tossed there. We shall see if anything is produced, although friends tell me it’s unlikely from hybrid seeds. The vines’ vigor certainly bodes well!
Yay “Protector” is one step closer to being in my house.
BTW have you seen this: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/04/heres-some-more-long-series-novels-and-chunks?
Yay! Protector! **does happy dance** — Got my Cuisinart bread maker Saturday as an early B-day (May) present from my mom and made my first loaf with unbleached white flour — a little chewy, but beautiful grain. Crust needed to be darker, but high marks on the yum. Like a total idiot I did not copy down your favorite bread recipe. Any chance you could email it to thewolery (at) sbcglobal.net? — I got both white and whole wheat flour and some amarinth. The place I got it from has oat flour, brown rice flour. . .
See:
http://theowlunderground.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/of-sport-spoiling-and-solid-geometry/
I can’t imagine having to do all the typing on a typewriter that you must have done back in the real old days and with a carbon, too. No wonder you type so fast. You’ve had so much practice. . .
I learned at age 10 on an old black manual Underwood that had fallen out the window of the Social Security office (someone set it on the sill) and it had been repaired. Dad got it for me for $35.00. Talk about ways to warp your fingers…You only see them now in period movies, and it had a 2″ action in each key press. I still have it.
Re the bread recipe: easy. First, add—1 tsp each of salt, sugar (I use honey or maple syrup), 2 tbs olive oil, 1 and 1/2 cups of hot water. Now go measure 1 lb of BRead Machine flour, and toss on half a cup of wheat bran. It doesn’t weigh much. Dump that atop the water.
Now add 2 tsps of Bread Machine yeast.
Bake on Dark, #2 setting (I think: it’s the Italian setting—be SURE to pick your menu setting) And if you then do another loaf, CHECK THAT SETTING: your next try at a loaf is likely to advance the program to the next menu setting, rather than staying where it was. Always doublecheck the menu setting.
It’s also very easy to set the timer when you have time and have it come out ready and hot for supper. I often put bread on at 11, to start mixing at 1…to do this, I use the +/- key to add 2 hours to the 4:00 time it will give on menu 2; this means it will be ready promptly at 5…but you have to PUSH THE START BUTTON once you’ve added that time. It won’t start immediately. But if you don’t push that start button it will wait for doomsday…no bread at 5. 🙂
Programming in a team can be like that. You sweat on something for a couple of days then you post the changes back to the source code repository and hope for the best. Things that can trip you up:
* You got lazy and didn’t look before making changes (easy in the heat of the moment to just click through the read-only warning on the local file). When you go to push your changes it turns out that one or more files are locked out by colleagues who are busy making their own changes to those files.
* The project lead has decided to freeze the code while out of band tests are performed. You just changed the code – uh oh.
* (my personal favourite) you forget that you’ve added a file to the project and you neglect to also add it to the repository. You just push up the changed files and think that’s it. Usually this is something that no-one else can figure out and they don’t find out until they update their local copy and discover that it’s broken.
What adds a certain piquancy to this in my case is that I’m part of a trans-Atlantic software development team. I always try to push my changes before mid-day so that there’s the maximum overlap between UK and US time zones. Screwing everything up then going home doesn’t endear you to your colleagues who have barely finished their first cup of coffee 🙂
I remember delivering my first two books to the publisher.
Printed out a copy, packed it up, caught the local bus into Berkeley, transferred to another bus, got off at my stop, walked upstairs to hand over the box to Peter and chat with the staff before heading back to downtown Berkeley for lunch, drop by the Other Change of Hobbit, and who knows perhaps I bought a Cherryh book on those trips.
Thanks for the recipe! Will try it next. Still gotta find a good ciabatta recipe. So what’s the “drop” date on Protector? Your Wizmatronic dohickey does not show Jane’s progress on Chernevog and Yvgenie. Don’t mean to be circling like buzzards, but, well, you know. . . .
A toast with the aforementioned strawberries and a nice Chardonnay!
Chernevog will be up in a matter of days.