just sayin’.
I rarely do short pieces. But in the process of trying to get my head on straight after the Yvgenie edit while traveling, I’ve done a Foreigner short piece, involving Ilisidi, and involving her viewpoint. I haven’t got it up on CC yet, but it will be. It’s technically a novelette, but nobody actually knows what that is, ie, it’s shorter than a novella, longer than a short story…but—the dictionary that *doesn’t* reference the SFWA definition calls it a novella. Whatever it is…it’s coming.
Comments like those certainly age one!
Groan. Yep.
Re fonts—when Jane was doing the Gate of Ivrel graphic, I pitched in to help. Rather than hand-letter the graphic, we decided to do a font based on Jane’s lettering. So I did. We got a fontmaker, and I input her ‘hand’, and we produced a typescript which we cut apart with scissors and glued on with spray glue.
Here we are, in nightgowns and gas masks, sitting on the tile floor in Jane’s office next to the cabinets, trying to glue little strips of dialogue into the balloons on the originals, and we have pieces of dialogue stuck to us, to the floor, to various pieces of paper—
Fortunately the glue was repositionable.
Modern graphic programs are so much saner and do not require a gas mask.
BWAHAHAHAHA! 😉 “Little did they suspect!”
OMG, spray glue. I used to use that to make mock-ups. That stuff is toxic. My first couple of jobs at newspapers used wax. Ah, the smell of the chemical typesetter machine and hot wax. Moving to graphics programs required a steep learning curve, but at least I don’t stick to everything I touch anymore, or have to construct a half-point border using a teensy roll of border tape and an x-acto.
I remember industrial design classes, where we would get tiddly on the fumes from rubber cement and Bestine. Then it was off to screen printing, with a different set of inks and solvents in a underventilated room. Printing press printing was yet another set of stinky chemicals for processing photosensitive paper and the old typesetting machines (swap out transparent discs with type physically imprinted on them, run paper through a chemical bath) and making Veloxes. At least current computer processing doesn’t require several flavors of potential carcinogens, although there are many different types of design software, depending on the application.
Ah, yes, but visiting a typesetter and seeing the skill used by the people who laid out all those metal letters was wonderful. (I never actually saw any kind of typesetting machine.) The typesetter I used to go and see was an old family firm, now long gone.
I also like the ‘uneven’ result you see in the type in pre-computer books…
I worked at the munificent sum of $0.10 an hour to use a burning iron and special tape to put the numbers on the spines of the special collections at OU. I had a good ‘hand’ for numbers, so I got the special collections, and the others got the current reference books. There were books from the earliest days of typesetting, in a darkened room with a wire grating, and you needed special keys. They brought books to my table out of that inner sanctum, and it was a little nervous-making to apply the indelible iron to a leather-spined volume that was already needing conservation…
The up side was that I got to read a bit of them. I’d lay one open beside my work, and dart a glance over from time to time. There were books with photos that themselves would be valuable to a state history researcher…books from private collections willed to the library.
The pay was a pittance. But it was pretty well required to be in the scholarship eligible pool, and I really needed that tuition scholarship. So I burned my fingers in the service of all mankind. I can still see some of the scars. 😉 It WAS interesting work, right along with my translating and washing planarian pans and flipping flatworms for the RNA study. Other people flipped burgers. I was paid less, but at least I had a feeling of satisfaction. I even helped edit a publication that was headed for one of the big Science publications—I think it WAS Science, or Scientific American.
My first job in publishing (as a researcher) took place when publishing was still king. There was no competition from any electronic media, and the written word was revered by many editors (some a little too ‘precious’ for my liking, in fact). In that job, the text for each book went through eleven editorial stages in the UK and US, and one spent nine months putting together each book.
The Internet didn’t exist, so one physically visited archives, museums and various collections, to delve into cavernous rooms to research a variety of objects, or bury oneself in wonderful old libraries like the London Library in St James’.
I learned so much in that job, and it was amazing to be paid for something you really loved doing and gave you so much.
In the UK in around the mid-1990s, many publishing companies got absorbed by big conglomerates and became corporate and impersonal, basically caring only about the bottom line. That sense of excellence was largely lost in pursuit of the fast buck.
There is a very noticeable difference between editing standards today compared with when I started out in publishing. In some books the editing is really terrible, and there is no proper attention to good grammar at many publishing houses – the emphasis is on getting each ‘product’ out as quickly as possible. The lowering of education standards is also partly to blame. There are still exceptions to this general rule, of course, but overall editorial standards have slipped badly. Personally, I refuse to let my own standards slip and the people I do work for always accept this – if they didn’t, I wouldn’t work for them…
Sitting behind me in my home office, now mostly unused, because I need to reorganize, is a small light table, T-square, and somewhere in the cabinet are glue sticks. There is a waxer also.
I am one of those who learned some of hand pasteup on artboards, while learning the early page layout and graphics programs on the Mac. I grew up with an interest in languages, the alphabet, calligraphy, and then fonts, so I got pretty good at identifying early computer fonts. (Now there are so many, it’s hard to know.)
I am still looking for something besides Illustrator to replace Freehand, no longer supported. Inkscape has given me mixed results. Illustrator, which used to be much like Freehand, is now a royal pain, IMHO.
I know and use things like picas and points and other obscurities. My pasteup skills are OK, but not the best, and hah, these days, I hardly ever have to pasteup something, for which I am most grateful, for reasons CJ, Chondrite, et al. have well outlined. Heh.
In high school journalism class, I had a little training, but most was self-taught, much reading.
I’m proud of that skillset. I’m proud to be able to recognize the subtleties in the design and history of a typeface, and why some things are done the way they are.
Hah, that story of doing the Gate of Ivrel project sounds exactly like doing ad work and other things for rush jobs.
I’m a very good proofer and copyeditor and a good typesetter, layout person, and pretty good at graphics, doing illustrations, though that needs work now. I’d been in the process of designing a few fonts, but I’m not sure the old backups are in any form I can get off the old media to resume. I’m expecting to have to start from scratch.
I see things these days and I know that the people doing them don’t have enough training; I can just see it in what’s done. Most often, it shows in lack of proofreading of body copy, for instance. But yes, I can remember doing work and then at press time, seeing a typo. Very aggravating. — I’ve also seen very professional reference books with glaring typos in the headlines, one I remember was on the first few pages of the book.
But — because I have that early computer background, from before computer-based publication design was the standard, back when much was still hand-done (gee, all the way back in the mid-1980’s! Haha!) I am actually glad to see ebooks and indie publishing going on. People who care about the quality *will* learn the arts and crafts of publication design and editing, and it’ll result (eventually) in lots more high-quality authors, editors, artists, and designers getting their work out to the public. The public is just as eager now for good reading, viewing, and listening as ever, maybe more so. My feeling is that this will be very much like what is still transforming the record “industry,” with bands (artists again) doing their own production and promotion and getting more direct sales to fans. The trouble there becomes how to reach that wide audience to build big numbers. But even that seems to be finding new avenues. Look at how brand-new singers and musicians are finding ways to create an audience via YouTube, for instance. Meanwhile, yes, it is tough on everyone who has a hand in the publishing and publication design businesses, obviously including authors. It means that just like when I was a college kid learning how to do what I do, people now have to learn, unlearn, and relearn skills to take advantage of this very strange new beast rising from the old.
Right, keep telling myself, it’s an adventure, it’s an adventure!
— I’m off to Lowe’s for a few home-improvement and gardening supplies, what I can afford. Then the grocery store, then back home.
Many cheers on what’s upcoming from CC! Looking forward to them.
Oh, and I would’ve loved to see those volumes at OU. — BTW, a cousin’s daughter and son will likely be going to OU as he did. Good grief, only two years before the daughter’s in college, about four before the son is.
With apologies for the second similar request in a short time: any timeline on seeing this? Inquiring (and capitalistic!) fans want to know… 😉
Seeing which?
the Foreigner short piece
I’d like to see it in printed form – otherwise won’t be able to read it. 🙁
Any chance of that?
AH—we’re working on that. Almost!
Sapphire, if you have a printer, you can easily print it. Just choose the PDF and print away. This is true of ANY Closed Circle book or story. Download the file, unzip it—this requires an unzip program, which is already installed on most computers, or there are many free ones you can safely download, like jzip. Choose the pdf, copy it as a file, and store it to read on your computer screen, or print it onto paper. All our books are DRM-free, which is Latin for ‘you can read it anywhere, or print it, or put it on a dvd and save it or have it on as many devices as you like.’ Amazon is DRM, but we aren’t.
Ha! Will need to investigate how to ‘choose the PDF’. But will do that when it is available – thanks very much!
(By the way, it sure is a looong wait for the next book. I’m reaching the end of my sweet James White hospital sequence reread and am going to have to find another diversion soon.) 🙂
Lol—Sapphire, the deal is pretty simple. You download the ‘mini’ file. You get it on your computer. You double-click on it. If you already have an unzip program, it miraculously opens up into 4 files, one of which has the ending .pdf, and that’s the one you want.
If you don’t have an unzip utility installed, nothing at all will happen and you ask us. We tell you where to get a download like jzip, and you go there, download THAT file, click on it, it installs itself, and afterward, any zipped file you click on will open politely and properly. [Most windows installations have a zip utility already.]
Just ask us when the time comes.
That’s brilliant – thank you so much, CJ!
I have a brand-new Mac (which I needed because I’ve just gone back to freelance work and had to have all the latest programs used in publishing for compatibility purposes). It certainly has an unzip facility, but of course I will let you know if there is any problem opening the document when the time comes. I could even have the story as a Word document, but then I might be tempted to start editing it (lol, as they say, I think). 🙂
🙂