Writing, Proofreading and Posting

[teleen_fiction]

This post is going to be very boring, but for no reason that I can fathom my brain is making me write it before it will let me continue writing Chapter 67, which I have been doing, slowly but surely.

For those of you who are interested (i.e. none of you) the process that a chapter of The Perfect Storm goes through before you all see it is fairly elaborate. 

First, I write it.  Then I look it over, usually more than once.  Then I send it to be beta'd by my beta goddess whom I worship, wait for it to come back, correct what was wrong and let it sit for a while.  I come back to it sometime before it's due to be posted.  I was pretty far ahead on chapters for a while, but lately, not so much.  

Tonight I proofed the three chapters that will go up on Wednesday.  Sometime before Wednesday, I'll do a 'save as [file name] Teaspoon' and go through each of them putting in paragraph breaks and HTML for the italics, etc. so that they'll be ready for Teaspoon and the Angst Archive.  While I'm doing this, I nearly always find more typos or corrections that I want to make, which I'll have to correct in both the original file and the Teaspoon file.  Again, sometime before Wednesday, I'll go through each Teaspoon chapter again and add in any HTML or paragraph breaks that I've missed. 

Then I'll upload them to LJ, usually still before Wednesday, though last week I did it right before I cross-posted, an experience that I can definitely live without because I'll always mess up a link (or two) when I don't do it in stages.  If I'm doing it ahead of time, I'll set the links to 'my eyes only'.  This is why those of you who have "The Perfect Storm" tag set to notify you don't get a notification every time.  Sorry about that, BTW, as I plan to tag this "The Perfect Storm", since I'm writing about what I have to go through to get it up for y'all each week, heh.  

Sometimes while I'm uploading chapters to LJ, I'll find more typos and have to go back and correct them...  in three different places. 

Wednesday arrives and it's time to upload everywhere.  I'll usually do Teaspoon and the Angst Archive a few hours earlier, both for validation and again, when I split this up into stages it's easier on my poor brain. 

Then it's time to cross-post.  I open each chapter and unlock it, then copy the links.  I have a pre-made template because I'm just a dork like that and I have cross-posting down to a flippin' science.  I can cross-post to a dozen different LJ communities in about forty minutes from the time I unlock the chapters to the time I post to trauma_rec_fic.

By the time that it's visible in every place that I post, every chapter has been read a minimum of half a dozen times and there are five different files that have to be corrected for every one typo that is found.  Which is why I firmly believe that there are gremlins who are attempting to drive me insane every time y'all find one.

It's also why I'm so very grateful when they're found.  No seriously, I am.  Those gremlins need every eye out there to keep them from overrunning us all!  

Yes, I am very strange IRL - why do you ask?

I will continue to reward those who find multiple typos with drabbles, so keep your eyes peeled, :)! 

Thanks, ;).

Comments

[slave-prince03.livejournal.com]

Wow, you make me feel negligent because I only read mine through a couple of times lol. I did discover the back button was great for crossposting headers & links. Once you get the 'posted successfully' page, back button and then all you need to do is change the comm it's posting to. It works for me, anyway, but then I don't use the rich text version to post, dunno how you do it but since you mention adding html for Teaspoon but not for LJ, I figure you're probably using the RTE. (I html my own LJ posts, I don't trust the RTE after it messed up my posts a few times.

Nate

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

I used to only read them through a couple of times in the beginning, but since I was having to go back to five different files to fix the typos I found, I've been trying to catch them *before* I post. Also, I'm anal, heh.

Back button, huh?... *brb headdesking 4ever* With all the little shortcuts that I thought of, not one of them included that one, so thanks, :). Just in time for this week's chapters, :). I use Rich Text, though it really doesn't seem to matter with the cross-posting since I'm only copying and pasting a pre-made template.

I don't have the patience or skill for hard-coding. The only major instance of that I've done successfully so far is the Rule for trauma_rec_fic and that was only because I had no choice, heh. And every now and then I'll update it and forget a " and screw up all of the code there. I'm detailed-oriented, but when I get impatient, things get missed, :).

The only thing that LJ seems to consistently eat is the list of communities to which I cross-post. I have an 'eyes-only' post that I was using to keep track of where I'd promoted the community, and it kept eating the comm names... And every now and then I'll post a chapter and some of them will disappear when I inevitably have to go back in and edit.

Computers are weird, ;).

Thanks again for the suggestion, :).

[azure-chaos.livejournal.com]

Oh, the trials of being a perfectionist ;) I have to ask though, why five files? I can understand maybe three of those, but I'm at a bit of a loss for five lol.

And YAY for teaching someone something new \o/ It's always good to pass on info that was discovered by accident someone doesn't know :D

Nate

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

The five files are: the original Word file, the Teaspoon Word file, the Angst Archive, LJ and Teaspoon. I told you, I'm anal, lol!

Yay you! ;)

[azure-chaos.livejournal.com]

Oookay lol. *shakes head* I'm sure you could probably streamline that, but...hey, I'm guessing you're ok with your anal-ness ;)

ETA: Aaaaaaand I just realised I'm mixing my LJ's about, that's ok to do on my own LJ's but isn't fair on other people's, sorry about that.

Nate

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

I could probably streamline it to four, sure, :).

Don't worry about it, heh - I know that they're both you, :).

[azure-chaos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, lol, sometimes it's like there's two of me in here *taps head* anyway lol.

Nate

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

There are a minimum of two of me, heh...

Just remember, you can talk to yourself and answer yourself, but if you find yourself saying, 'Huh?' then there's probably a problem... ;)

[azure-chaos.livejournal.com]

*giggles madly* Oh dear... ;)

Nate

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

The first time I heard that, I was giggling for *days*...

[azure-chaos.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a good one ;)

Nate

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

:)

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'd like to write a drabble for you as a thank you for all of the time you helped me to save this week. Please just send me a prompt. I pretty much only write Jack Harkness paired with, well, anyone, so please let me know, :).

Thanks again!

[slave-prince03.livejournal.com]

Awwww thanks :)

Hmm, let's see. I'm not sure what other fandoms you're familiar with. What about Jack/Colby Granger? Dommie Jack, prompt...hmm Learning to deal with immortality (I'm a big believer that Colby has super powers and that he could potentially be immortal ;) ).


*excited*
Nate

[ravenja1170.livejournal.com]

uh, this sounds quite enervating (I mean the part that comes after the writing and betaing *g*) ... ;-) I'm glad you go through with all this! :-)

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Thanks, :), although enervating isn't quite the word that I would use, lol!

[eve-from-oz.livejournal.com]

I can't tell from your post if this is what you do so just in case: for Teaspoon when I uploaded my (one and only) story I did a Save as html on my Word doc rather than putting in the html code myself (because I love to abuse the bold and italics so coding is such a pain ^^)

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

*brb headdesking 4ever*

Every day, I learn something new. If I'd known that I could do that, I would have been doing it from the beginning.

When I think of how much time I've wasted...

*brb headdesking 4ever*

Thanks for telling me, :)!

[eve-from-oz.livejournal.com]

Happy to help :)

Have a cute kitty icon ^^ (tried to find my inexplicable kitten of doom but it's not on this account so here's schrodinger's cat instead)

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Thanks, :).

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Okay, which one do I save it as? Because I'm not very clear on which file format to use... Please let me know. Thanks, :).

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Never mind, I figured it out. I also owe you a drabble - please send me a prompt, :).

[eve-from-oz.livejournal.com]

Glad to help, no drabble necessary :)

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

No, seriously - you've saved me who knows how much time. Plus, they're fun to write, heh!

[eve-from-oz.livejournal.com]

I am so in awe of anyone who can write drabbles, I can't even write short stories ^^

Also I fail at the whole giving prompts thing, like being asked what I want for my bday it tends to end in "umm, huh, I don't know, you pick"

Besides which I love your writing so much that just the fact you wrote anything for *me* would probably make me smile like an idiot for at least half an hour :)

And that was such a longwinded way to say: "umm, huh, I don't know, you pick" wasn't it? ^^

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

Heh. All I need is a word, :). Past prompts I've written from are: Cold, Rain, & Longing, :).

Just give it some thought and please let me know, :).

Thanks!

[von_gelmini.livejournal.com]

I love reading about people's process. Yours sounds very thorough. No wonder it's so good. :) But it does sound exhausting and confusing to keep track of so many files and formats.

Since it takes a different format, I doubt I'll ever save my stuff to teaspoon. It all ready takes me forever just to x-post. I don't know how y'all do it so fast.

I haven't gotten into the habit of being beta'd. Occasionally I think that my work could benefit from it, but I am so obsessive about posting immediately after finishing, and about not missing more than a couple of days between posts, that the thought of having to wait for a beta reading just makes me antsy. That and I'm so used to having been other people's editor for so long, I kinda get a blind spot about it.

One odd thing I've been told that I do in my process is to read my finished story aloud. Not just aloud in my head, but actually listening to the spoken words, reading sort-of dramatically. It helps me find a lot of mistakes.

I really do need to commit to being beta'd, though. *shudders* Maybe next time.

[teleens-journal.livejournal.com]

I just found out in another comment that the 'different format' can be done very easily - I've been doing it the hard way all of this time... *brb headdesking 4ever* On the upside, I learned me some HTML...

I've thought of reading it aloud, but have never done it. I may have to start - thanks for the thought, :).

A beta is a personal choice, :).