Proofreading

Surely I am not alone when I write of those heady days of my youth when I dreampt of receiving the galleys of my novel from my publisher. I could almost smell the ink on the pages, fresh from the wooden contraption that gave them their name, the galley-press. (Click on the link for a picture and description of the process of creating galleys.)
Those publishing people really worked hard, didn't they? I guess it got easier once they harnessed the sun to help power the press...

Oh how I wanted a book and in 2006, I got one, thanks to Adam Nevill. The publishing process for Wild Card began: write book, submit book, proofread book. However, whilst my career as a novelist was as new as tomorrow's dew, the days of the galleys were but a memory, as poignant and ancient as the first tear of heartbreak.


What I received from my editor was a quick email note with a fat attachment. I was asked to look at the author's proofs and relay my corrections via email ASAP.

No smell of ink, no ream of heavy paper...and in place of the words I'd imagined would drop me into the pantheon of Great Canadian Writers as surely as Sheila Watson landed there with The Double Hook (one slim novel) I cast my eyes down to see:

He leant away slightly to put his hand between her knees, and then drew it slowly up her skirt until his fingers cupped her sex. She widened her stance to accommodate his big hand. He laughed at the wetness of her panties.

Oops, I remember now. I'm not in the running for Great Canadian writer, one slim novel or no. But that's okie dokie with me. I simply wish to be known as one of the many marvelous contemporary erotica writers working in the UK today. That's why I've crossed the pond. So please, if you wish to order my work do so from Amazon.co.uk. I'd be positively chuffed, eh? Here is a photograph of me reading one of my favourite novels in my English Garden.


Perhaps I should have said one of my favourite novels. I live next door to Elizabeth George and across the street from Mitzi Szereto. Honest I do.

I submitted five pages of author's corrections for Wild Card. An example?

...lips pursed in a tiny O to accommodate the delicacy it nibbled.

Since I am writing about her lips (plural) delicacy should be followed by the word they, however, since lips don’t nibble, teeth do – please change it to read:
...lips pursed in a tiny O to accommodate the delicacy of the nipple.

Oh my Gawd our editor is a saint. Here's pictorial proof from the Virgin Press archival library (now part of the Random House Archival Libraries).

St.Adam Tends to His Flock of Biddies er, make that Birdies:



I hasten to say that the author's comments on the author's proofs for my second Black Lace novel, Amanda's Young Men, were only four pages long and this was mainly because the powers that be decided to relocate it from the UK to NA and I was asked to suggest word changes they might have missed, for example, 'elevator' instead of 'lift'. Here's my favourite:

Page 193, Line 25 ‘Naff off, you, before you get hurt.' (UK)
Change word:
‘Take off, you, before you get hurt, (NA)

The rest of my suggestions were much simpler this time, to whit:

Page 98, Line 22:You'll have fun with this little slut, Roger, you’ll see. Lift her up by...
Change name: You'll have fun with this little slut, Rupert, you’ll see. Lift her up by...

This is important because while Roger is a fifty-something philandering husband who is, in fact, dead by this point in the novel...



Rupert is a legal young hottie with an angelic face and an ever ready hardon.



I've only ever received author's proofs for one short story, from Mitzi Szereto, for Hurting Hugh, in Getting Even: Revenge Stories. I was eternally grateful because I got to answer a question posed by the American proofreader ('cougar' is UK, should we use 'puma' instead?) with STET. "The proofreader uses this Latin term to indicate that proofreading marks calling for a change should be ignored and the text as originally written should be "let stand." Talk about yer wet panties!

I like receiving author's proofs. The work is detailed to the point of being obsessive and I am helping to improve my book. Now let us address another aspect of proofreading - proofing the work of others.

My daughter wrote a fantasy novel which I undertook to proof and subtly edit as a gift for her nineteenth birthday. The work was excruciating; at times I felt I was taping an invisible wall, only to find she'd meant 'Tapping an invisible wall. DUH.' Later, she thanked me. Her work shows promise.

I am an excellent proofreader of Felix Baron's work. This is one of the reasons why the author's proofs he receives are so much less error-riddled than my own. Felix thinks I am the best proofreader there is. He has secured not one but two 'quick' proofreading gigs for me, as a way of grabbing some 'fast cash'. (A buck a page.)

In both instances the same mistake was made and both gigs ended poorly. The error? I did not insist that the piece be formatted in Word before it was sent to me.

The first time, there were so many glitches in the piece that I sent it to my computer analyst sister, who makes more money per hour than I make per short story, for help. She performed miracles but there was some dumb little dinky mark, no bigger than this + that showed up every now and again. This little mark, according to the author, destroyed the integrity of the novel and negated all my hard work.

Spoiler alert: This novel had no end. Apparently, the author decided once she'd typed enough words to call it a book, it was one. I actually wrapped up the story for her, not that she + noticed. I'm happy to report that I was paid. I'm sorry to report that my last words to her were 'You'll never sell it in a million years.'

Not long ago, Felix arranged another proofing gig for me. As we were dealing with a friend of his, a fellow who self-publishes, Felix spent the day reformatting the Word Perfect document into Word before I began. I ploughed through the story of a cop in small town America who cannot catch a serial killer even though our protagonist has been established (in a number of previous self-published novels) to be an expert in his field and has been given an additional 400 officers to assist him. Meanwhile the murderer tears an astonishing number of women to pieces. Will you forgive me when I say that once I was done I dispatched the attachment post haste?

Incredibly, the document had been so corrupted by the reformatting that most of my changes were not saved. The author was understandably upset. The two friends agreed to meet and Felix, being English, departed for the coffee shop fully confident that I would be paid. Our intrepid author offered Felix a box of chocolates for me in lieu of money. Felix replied,'Let's forget the whole thing.' To the author, a Canadian, this statement means 'Hurrah! We're still pals and you'll still write blurbs for my books and I can still call you whenever I want and say, "Felix, is there a hyphen in half-back" and you'll be happy to answer!' To Felix it means, 'I just forgot that you were ever born.'

Spoiler alert: The serial killer book has a happy ending. No, the cop doesn't actually ever catch the killer but he (the killer, sadly, not the cop) freezes to death in a creek and in the spring along comes a lean, hungry old wolf who makes quite a meal of that nasty carcass!)

My lesson? I'm good at proofing my own work and I'm good at proofing Felix's work. The rest I'd best leave to the pros. I guess I should mention that Felix 'proofs' my work too but instead of looking for things like, say, where I've used the dead guy's name instead of the hottie's name, he has admitted that he's mostly looking for information about my darkest, unspoken sexual desires. This makes for two things:
1)Our editor thinks Felix is a consummate professional and I'm a newbie.
2) Some confusing and foody (eeek!) encounters between the sheets.

Things I know about proofreading? Three Facts and a Hypothesis:

3 Facts
The manuscript must be properly formatted and delivered in Word.
Spell check does not replace proofreading.
If it's short, like a business letter, read it backwards.

1 Hypothesis
By the way, our editor is not under any obligation to approve the changes suggested by the author. Author's proofs are a luxury, not a right. So...

I betcha, if you're asking for a big change, you have a better chance of getting it if you try and match the number of characters in the corrected version with the number of characters in the original version, much as we did in the bad old days when we were actually typing these things and using white-out to try and make corrections with a minimum of retyping. For example:

Page 213, Line 18,19

Her brief velvet jacket hung loose, the soft fabric covering
only her arms, really. With each breath she took, the lining of the velvet
jacket caressed her nipples.

Change sentences so they don’t contradict each other:

Her brief jacket hung loose, barely covering half of each breast. With each
breath she took, the satin lining of the velvet jacket caressed her
nipples.

Original: 28 words, 137 characters w/out spaces, 173 characters w/ spaces.
Revised: 27 words, 133 characters w/out spaces, 168 characters w/ spaces.

Professional proofreaders, care to comment? Authors, any tips or traumas to talk about? Readers, any groaners to report? And how do you spell it? Proofreader, proof-reader, or proof reader?

Friday's Slot - Madeline Moore

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What If...

Shakespeare wrote that the courageous die only once but cowards suffer a thousand deaths - in their imaginations, of course. Something similar could be said of writers. We might not imagine our own deaths with any great frequency but what about la p'tite morte?

If I’m asked where I get my inspiration from the question makes about as much sense to me as being asked where I get my air. It’s all around me, noticeable only when it’s absent.

For instance:
This morning’s mail brought the usual bills and flyers, plus a deckle-edged cream envelope addressed to me in what looked like real hand-writing. Felix and I have never been to a munch, which is what a kinky brunch is called in Southwestern Ontario. But surely if we received a handwritten invitation he'd be willing to don his tux and I could wear...oh any number of gauzy trifles and...I slit open the envelope to discover an offer for ten percent off a gym membership. WTF? If I want to be stretched, folded and twisted, it won’t be in the interest of exercise, in which in fact I have very little interest.

Yes, the impact of reality can be a shock, but nobody said writing erotica is easy. In this case my error led me to a story idea about a subbie who has a little too much fun at her first munch, due in large part to a misheard (dare I suggest misspoken) directive from her Dom. In a vanilla relationship, this might lead to a big fight, but in the D/s world, it can be downright dangerous.

Last week, while I was walking down Yonge Street, a big raindrop splattered on my forehead. Another hit my instep. I darted into the nearest entranceway just in time to avoid a major soaking. As it happened, the entrance was to my regular pharmacy – chemist, to those on the other side of the pond. But what if it’d been the doorway to a sex shop? What if, while I waited the storm out, someone, a large, distinguished gentleman with slightly sinister but handsome features, (OK, it’s Felix Baron) opened the door and hooked me inside, chiding me for being late? What if he’s planned a kinky fashion show? I find myself in leather boots with six inch heels and a transparent latex dress. Or maybe it’s an auction! Interesting, maybe, but hardly new. Unless it’s a story about the particular challenges a D/s relationship faces in its final days. How do Master and slave end an arrangement that can be more binding than marriage? She finds out her Dom (no longer Felix) is auctioning her off and is torn – on the one hand, it will free her from him which is what she secretly wants but could never arrange by herself. But is she of so little value to him that he’d really sell her to the highest bidder? And what if no one wants her? Hmmm…

Or what if there had been no handy doorway, and I’d got so drenched that my dress turned transparent and clingy, so by the time I got inside the pharmacy the a/c made my nipples hard and I sneeze and a distinguished baritone, no, make it soprano, says, ‘Bless you.’ By now I’m not exactly me, I’m Madeline Moore, author, and I’m not exactly daydreaming, I’m a writer at work. The soprano isn’t exactly the sexy cosmetics gal with the spiky blonde hair, she’s – OK she is the sexy cosmetics gal with the spiky blond hair but now we’re talking story, not idle fantasy. A Cure For the Common Cold? I like it.

Naturally books and pictures are an easy way to turn on the tap. But reruns on TV? A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to catch the CSI Las Vegas episode in which Grissom first meets Lady Heather, the professional Dominatrix. It was the fourth time I’d started to watch that episode. I still have no idea how it ends. Once those two meet, the plot goes one way but my mind has gone in another, entirely different one, and I’m a happy little mental voyeur till long past the closing credits.


Speaking of Lady Heather, in the last episode starring the fearless Domme she made a deal with an evil client that entitled him, for a six figure sum, to choke her to death. That was one story during which I definitely didn’t daydream. It was not only verrrry kinky, without any sex, but gave us a peek into the tightly-wound emotional makeup of Gil Grissom, and, as an added feature, showed the maturity of his relationship with Sara Sidle. ‘Do what you have to do,’ she said when she found out Grissom had spent the night with Lady Heather. Later, he told her, ‘I was being a friend.’ Good stuff, CSI! With prime time TV like this, who needs...but...I digress...

Just about anything can veer off, in my mind, into erotic realms. Any new place I go could be the gateway to some wild sexual adventure. Any piece of mail – any new acquaintance – or just a clear starry sky.

Weather is a particular source of inspiration for me. Snow conjures up dreams of being trapped in a log cabin with a stunning ski instructor or a devious snow bunny, or both. Cold hands on hot parts, in real life or in my imagination, are always a turn on. Hot sunshine evokes Hawaiian beaches, and hula dancers in grass skirts, and muscular bronzed lifeguards, for a start. Hot blood, temperatures rising, sweat… Rain is particularly evocative. It figures prominently in my story Hurting Hugh in editor Mitzi Szereto’s anthology Getting Even: Revenge Stories,coming in October 2007 from Serpent’s Tail Press.

‘Some things are so damn beautiful you have to be happy just to see them. Like Northern Lights. Or a train crossing in the rain, with the bright beam of the engine lighting up the rain like a spotlight, and the red lights of the crossing bars flashing and the blaring whistle of the train competing with the clanging of the crossing bells. It's surreal.’

And later:

‘But it was the rain that really tipped the balance. I knew he probably couldn't tell who was behind the wheel, not with his poor night vision and all that rain streaming down the windshield. Plus, I knew the rain would wash away the gore so I wouldn't have to get my hands dirty hurting Hugh.’ (I love that last line.)

I’ve never, in real life, been ravished at midnight in torrential rain, but in my mind I’ve sucked enough rushing streams of rainwater off naked skin to fill a swimming pool.

When I find myself grocery shopping, after the initial shock wears off, not only are there all those people I don't know to fantasize about, strangers who could be incredibly depraved under their mundane facades, but there’s a ton of femme fruit, like melons and peaches, and all those phallic vegetables like cucumbers and parsnips. This sort of musing led to my first published piece, a little story called Breakfast With Tiffany that was included in a 'confessions of everyday women' type tome so I'll say no more lest the ruse be uncovered.

Here's how it works: I take everyday life and put it through a mental process I call The Eroticizer. This mini-distillery vapourizes the mundane, exhaling it in a misty cloud while isolating the sex-essence into a liquid pool of gold at the bottom of a Pyrex beaker. I mix this extract with other essential elements, like description and characterization and verisimilitude, and the result is released into the world like a new perfume, eau de erotica, or Essence of Madeline. My erotic fiction.

It has been said that to the pure, all things are pure. Likewise, to the prurient, all things are prurient.

Comment on today's blog and win a copy of Wild Card, by Madeline Moore.

Is it Art?

By Madeline Moore


'Tawdry, misogynistic, and unrealistic.' I'd pressed one of my best friends, another writer, to read my first erotica novel, Wild Card. Now she was giving me her honest opinion of the book. I was stunned.

Tawdry? As in cheap, flamboyant, and tasteless? OK but …misogynistic? Impossible. Wild Card is a Black Lace novel – written by women for women. Unrealistic? The action primarily takes place in a hotel room over a couple of days – the classic dirty weekend. Or did my friend think a good paddling followed by twelve strokes of the crop was more than a real woman could stand? Not if that woman is a pain slut!

Then the kicker. She called me an artist, and said I have a responsibility to the world. Just like her.

Well, I'm a writer, I know that. But an artist? What's that even supposed to mean?

Is erotica art? Is genre fiction art? This is a just a little essay and my first post as a member of Lust Bites (as is evidenced by the ungainly topic I chose) so I'll get to the point. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on who wrote it and when. It used to depend on whether it originally came with a hard or paper back, and, although 'trade paperbacks' and the lovely new covers introduced by traditional erotica imprints like Black Lace have blurred the distinction a little, it's still possible to judge a book by its cover.

Here's what I think about art: It evokes a feeling. Sometimes, the public response to art translates into action, (Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe for example) but not always. Mostly, aren't we simply awed by art?

Genre fiction writers are charged to evoke a particular feeling. Writers of horror set out to scare the reader. The High Priest of Horror, Stephen King, has only recently been acknowledged as a possible literary figure. Mystery writers lure the reader into following the chain of evidence and puzzling over clues. Elmore Leonard is the latest mystery writer to make the cut as an artist.

We erotica writers are charged with the task of sexually exciting the reader. Anne Rice comes to mind as an author who has transcended the erotica and horror genres to take her place among the mainstream literary figures of the day. These days, she's writing about Jesus!

Genre writers only get to be artists when they're old. (Who wrote it and when.) Or, to put it another way, when they have amassed a quantity of high quality books. New writers who are published by the mainstream publishers have a shot at being considered artists. (Hard cover or soft.) Newer writers identified by their publishing house as genre writers, don't. (Hard cover or soft.)

These days, Black Lace is looking for literary writing and believable scenarios, more chicklit with our clitlit, if you will. Meanwhile, romance publishers are looking for more clitlit with their chicklit. Chicklit may be a perjorative term, but it's a name for the books that the female population wants to read, and that's exciting. Clitlit, of course, is just plain rude.

Artists are free to add dollops of incest and child abuse and alcoholism to their work, (Fall on Your Knees by Anne-Marie MacDonald); it's almost de rigueur, these days, to imbue a book with substance by heaping on the substance abuse. Black Lace authors follow rules that prohibit that practise. Bestiality is another taboo topic for erotica genre writers that is used to good effect by literary authors. A Black Lace writer can't use it no matter how well-written it is. (No Bear by Marion Engle) for us! Our literary erotica guidelines forbid it.

We Black Lace authors are happy to move in the direction of literature, as much as the fairly tight schedule laid out in our contracts will allow. (Generally we get six months to complete a book.) If we create art, I know our editor would be overjoyed, as long as it's sexy art. But it isn't expected of us. We are expected to write extremely well and make our readers extremely horny. If we don't do that,it doesn't matter how pretty the prose is, we've failed. My book, Wild Card, like all erotica, is written for 'the one handed reader'. I think I accomplished that, and I think my editor thought so too. That's not only good enough for me, it makes me proud.

My friend said she wants her work to 'leave the world a better place,' and I said that my mission is 'to entertain, using my voice.' I also suggested that she is hobbled by her high ideals. While she struggles with the morality and message of her work, producing almost nothing, I write short stories (as Madeline de Chambrey)and novels (by Madeline Moore) that get published. There's no better way to become a better writer than to write.

In the volley of emails that ended a friendship, she had the last word. For the purposes of this essay, I thought I'd give the last word to Oscar Wilde...

'There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.'

...but then I decided, to hell with it, I'll give the last word to me.

From Wild Card by Madeline Moore:

'"After you cover my feet in your creamy come, Ray, I will spread my thighs and let you sink your fingers deep into my hot steaming naked cunt -" she made her words as crude as she could. The sudden revelation of her inner predator could shock a weak man into impotence but it always had the opposite effect on a strong one.'

Madeline's blog
Wild Card at Amazon