When denial fails, work begins
Blazing Reader,
As I related on Tuesday... when last we left our intrepid novelist (that's me) I had accidentally deleted two-thirds of the master copy of my newly published novel, All the Humans Are Sleeping.
As Blazing Reader, Teresa Nightingale (of attentiondesign.ca in British Columbia) responded:
"Oh wow, you must have been sweating bricks!"
Sadly, my initial reaction was actually denial.
This can't be happening. It will remedy itself. If I just ignore it, the problem will resolve itself.
Two weeks later, after that plan failed, the sweat started pouring. So I got to work.
Still having the published PDF version of the novel, I tested various AI apps that claimed they could convert the file back into Mac Pages or MS Word format.
None of them did a great job. In typical AI fashion, it made a lot of unnecessary changes to the file — such as randomly removing paragraph breaks.
This meant I had to spend about ten hours going through each line of text, comparing it to the paperback version and fixing all these AI modifications.
After completing the first round, I returned to page one, and did another proof, suspecting I missed some errors. Turned out I missed plenty. But round two only took five hours.
A copy of this resurrected version is being printed now and shipped to me. I'll have my assistant read the new and old versions side-by-side to ensure they look identical.
Anyway, it's done. I slayed that dragon and can live with the fact that I sometimes make big mistakes. I suspect many people fail in life not because they make mistakes, but because they think they shouldn't.
—John C.A. Manley
PS With the new edition of All the Humans Are Sleeping I added this testimonial from Ken McCarthy, founder of Brasscheck TV and author of the newly published book, How the Web Won.
John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.
