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Farley’s Friday: My Sailboat is Launched

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 13 Comments

Farley here.

I’m a happy dog. Mattina is in the water. I barked the whole time we were in traveller lift waiting to set sail. I was just too excited to contain myself. I couldn’t control my behaviour and jumped off the boat right as Kristina and Matt were letting the lines go. Alas, the dock hands were too quick. One of them grabbed my harness and lifted me back on board. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Now that we’re in the water, Kristina and Matt aren’t on a deadline and I get more attention. I’ve already had three walks today!

To celebrate, I rolled all over my trampoline. I love my trampoline.

Does it get any better than this?

Then, I ran below and played on the bed. I’m not allowed to do this, so don’t tell Kristina, but sometimes a dog just has to express himself.

Oh Oh. I don’t know how to remake this bed. I think someone will notice I’ve been in it.

Woof Woof.

Mattina – A Week On The Hard

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 7 Comments

Before I blog, I want to say I’m thinking of everyone affected by the hurricane and wish them my best. We were lucky to be in a spot that Sandy missed.

So it may look like Matt is doing all the work, but that’s only because I took all the pictures. I just wanted to point out I worked hard too.

We arrived at the marina in St. Augustine on Wednesday and have been working hard to get ready to launch (yesterday – we are now in the water).

First up: Open of the boat and check she’s dry. Yup – very dry, making us very happy. We ran a de-humidifier over the summer to help.

Next: Wash the marina dirt off the boat.

Rub a Dub Dub, a Man, a Woman and a Dog in a (I won’t say tub) Lagoon 380 S2.

Once the boat was clean, we waxed the hulls.

After that, it was on to maintenance. We prioritized things that need to be done while the boat is out of the water. We won’t put the sails back up or deploy our safety gear until after we launch.

Matt changing the gear oil in the sail drive, maintaining the props and changing zincs.

We hired marina staff to paint the bottom of Mattina. We scrubbed the dinghy and painted its bottom with the same bottom paint used on Mattina.

The last step: Check thru hulls are clear and working.

Today is the day we’ve been waiting for. We launch this morning and then we move on board.

Hurricane Sandy Brings Out the Best

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 4 Comments

Wednesday is my day to post about cruising, but in respect to those who are suffering from Hurricane Sandy, I decided to post something different.

I’ve been watching the footage and here is what I see: The kindness and bravery shown today was incredible.

A rescue worker carries an elderly woman from her home and takes care to keep her purse dry. A small thing, but I’m sure it was important to her.

Rescue workers help a man get to their vehicle and help him get his two dogs in the back. They didn’t leave his pets behind.

The bravery shown by the coast guard unit who rescued the people from the HMS bounty is amazing. They went out to sea in dangerous conditions that threatened to down their helicopter, and they saved people lives. In their interview, they were humble. I can’t say enough positive about the coast guard, both Canadian and American. I spend half my year on a sailboat, so this really hits home. This is Bravery with a capital B.

Today’s event made me feel good about the human race. There are so many amazing people out there.

Even though I wasn’t put in harm’s way by the hurricane, I want to thank all the people out there who helped others.

Farley’s Friday – Dog in a Boatyard

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 6 Comments

Farley here.

I’m in Florida. Bad weather is coming, but we’re in a safe place.  It’s hot here, much hotter than Winnipeg, Manitoba.

We left Winnipeg on Sunday and arrived in St. Augustine, Florida on Tuesday night. That means I spent 3 days in a car. Booooooring.

Kristina seemed excited that we crossed 9 States. All I saw was the inside of the van, a few trees, and hotel rooms.

So what can I say about Florida. That grass is weird and makes my feet itch.

I’ve got a nice yard for the week while my owners stay in a house. I get to chase squirrels, and they are inside and very tired. Too much work on the boat for them.

So what’s a dog life like in a boat yard, you ask. The rocks hurt my feet. The ground smells of odd things. I mentioned it is hot, so I either spend my time under a boat, and anyone’s boat will do, or I hide in my boat. I let my owners have the starboard side, but the port side is all mine.

Notice the Canadian Flag towel? Kristina puts it down for me, but I never use it.

The boat yard people are very nice and they like dogs. Me especially. Because I’m so cute, you know.

The draw back – I’m down from 3 walks a day to 2. What’s up with that? I can’t wait until Matt and Kristina are finished ‘working’ on their boat, launch it, and I get 3 walks again.

I get lifted and carried a lot. The boat is up on the hard and I need help getting on. Matt’s very good about it.

Matt giving me a lift.

There’s a mean dog on the boat beside us, and I had to snap at him to tell him to leave me alone. Now he just stares at me. It’s a bit awkward.

My owner’s bring ice to the boat to keep my water cold. The house has a fridge that makes ice cubes. Heaven for me. I love ice cubes. I never get any while sailing, so I’m having as many as I can right now. Once we’re under way my owners are always talking about power consumption and say we can’t have an ice cube maker.

Soon, the boat will be in the water, Kristina will put me back to the top of her priority list, and I can keep watch for dolphins.

Woof woof.

Sailing Season. The MATTINA Adventures Begin.

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 11 Comments

Some days are bigger days in life than others, and today is one of them.

After a long drive from Winnipeg, Manitoba to St. Augustine Florida, Matt and I have arrived at our boat. MATTINA  is a Lagoon 380 S2 and has spent the summer on the hard.

Where does the name come from? MATT and KrisTINA.We put our two names together, but wait! There’s more. Mattina means morning or beginning of the day in Italian. And my mom was born in Italy. With the start of every new day, there’s an opportunity to start a new adventure. So the name MATTINA seemed like a good fit for our boat.

Mattina in the Exumas (2011 – 2012 Season)

We’ve owned MATTINA since July 2009. We’ve sailed her from Delaware to the Bahamas and live aboard during the winters.

Our dog Farley keeps us company. He has his own blog on Friday’s so if you want to see how a dog does sailing, Friday is the day.

Mattina’s Summer Home

So now the work to get ready for the season begins. We decommissioned her last spring and we found in her in great shape this fall.

Today we start the commissioning process. This is our second boat, and over the years we have created a large spreadsheet to keep us organized. We go through each line item and get our lovely boat ready to hit the seas. Checking off items on the list is somehow very satisfying.

Our launch is scheduled for Halloween. So the question is, can we get everything done on time?

This week is the week for changes. Over the summer I don’t blog about cruising, but during the winter, well that’s different. My new schedule for posting is:

MONDAY: Writing

WEDNESDAY: Cruising

FRIDAY: Dogs.

You may have guessed that writing, cruising and dogs take up a big part of our lives. I hope you enjoy the posts and if you are out there cruising, I’d love to hear from you.

Farley’s Friday: A Bad Hair Day or Getting A Dog Ready to go South?

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

Farley here.

Look what Kristina did to me! My hair was flowing. It made me handsome. After my hair cut, I look funny. Let’s just say Kristina isn’t the most talented groomer. She cuts my hair herself because there are no groomers where we are going. Am I supposed to believe the Bahamians don’t have dogs?

BEFORE: Just call me gooooood lookin!

She says she’s getting me ready for the Bahamas. She blabbed on about how hot it is down south, how there are ticks, and how sand sticks in my hair. At least she listened to the vet when he said she shouldn’t cut my hair too short or I could get sunburnt, otherwise; I might be bald.

AFTER: And Kristina expects me to out in public?

I have to say, my ears feel lighter and cooler with shorter hair, but that’s the only good thing.

Now I have to wait until spring before I can have long hair again. Kristina is crazy with the clippers once we are living on Mattina.

So, am I still handsome?

Copyediting – Proofreading Comments Summary (Part Two)

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 6 Comments

 So we continue with copyediting and proofreading comments . . .

After my five-part blog on copyediting and proofreading, I collected the comments from this blog and from the LinkedIn writing group called Crime Fiction managed by Theresa de Valence.

Today I’ll focus on Having Others Proofread Your Work:

I received some interesting ideas about having others proofread your work and have grouped the comments below. Some comments gave a similar message so I picked one of them to post. I hope you find these helpful.

  • I threw a party…after my manuscript had been proofread by a pro (and she was good). I invited five well-read, literate friends and gave them each five page stacks of non-chronological parts of the manuscript. They were to read them over, mark what was wrong, tag those pages with coloured stickers and then trade with someone across the table. I reassembled the manuscript and made the CX where needed. It’s a constant process as you know. Not perfect, but darn close . . . I was in the room because . . . when my readers had questions about dialect or some military or nautical term I could answer them immediately. They read silently for the most part . . . unless they had questions. Having the pages out of context made for closer scrutiny . . . helping eliminate the usual tendency to mentally fill in words automatically . . . which the writer may do when reading one’s own book. . BTW, the manuscript was 102,000 words and having five readers meant it was accomplished in about four hours. I had a thank you card and gift for each reader when we were done. They liked the chore so much they volunteered to do it with future books . . . and I’m going to take them up on it.

 

  • If you can, have two of your most obsessive compulsive friends or relatives read the galley. They’ll work hard to find the little mistakes, the kinds that editors miss. However, in the end, don’t beat yourself up over every error; we are human. 


 

  • As a newspaper reporter, I knew many editors, but only a handful as meticulous as needed for a book manuscript. When I receive galleys, I ask two really good editors to read copies. Each of the three of us has her own copy. It is amazing to see how many errors each of us find, mistakes not duplicated by the other readers. And this is after the books have been through editors at the publishing house. Wow! For the first several books I used editor friends whose work I knew. I took them to dinner or some other entertainment as compensation. In all, five different editor friends have read for me. Now, I write them checks, which are never enough for what they contribute. They fuss, but will cash the checks. They get a kick out of reading the first print-outs, even boast about doing it. Others have volunteered, but I need pros. It works for me.

 

  • Genre is extremely important. You have to know the
genre to be able to tell the timing, rhythm, wording and nuances of the
story. Each one has its own blood pressure and heartbeat. Editors are
inclined to pick out things that they say are wrong, and may actually take 
more
away from the story than they put in. They tend to be superior in demeanour. 
For
example, an editor might tell me that the language in EINAR is too formal, 
but
they do not know Scandinavian speech patterns. I speak Norwegian, Danish,
Swedish , as well as English, German and Dutch to varying degrees and know the
rhythm of all the languages. It also helps in research. It is their opinion
unless they are on the payroll of one of the major publishers. In that case you
kind of have to do what they say for the most part if you can’t prove your
point.

 

  • Be careful who you go with as an editor. Be absolutely sure that they are well versed in your specific genre. If you write horror, do not settle for a fantasy editor, it is not the same thing. Always look for personal compatibility. It is your baby that you are entrusting them with, not some mangy red boned mutt from the pound.

 

  • Trade with someone – you proof theirs & they proof yours. Errors tend to get less detectable with repeated readings, until they look more “normal” than more “correct” usages. And that script reading by your characters is probably a good idea for reasons way beyond proofing – might want to do it while you’re doing drafts as well, to try out alternative sequences. An audience helps, although they’ll get testy after a while, no matter how good the writing is.

Thanks for reading and thanks for the comments . . .

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Farley’s Friday – Grooming While Cruising

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 12 Comments

 

Farley here!

My owner, Kristina, has decided she doesn’t have time to write about me. She’s too busy writing her book. So . . . I’ve stolen her laptop and am going to write my blog. My paws are a bit clumsy, but I can do it. I know I can.

Farley Guarding Kiting Gear on a Beach in the Bahamas

How do you like my hair cut above? Too short, I think. But it’s too hot in the Bahamas for me to have long hair. Plus, I get covered in sand and get itchy. I just wish Kristina had taken lessons in clipping my hair. Once she gave me a bald spot on top of my head. Good thing I’m a dog and don’t care.

So what’s in my grooming kit?

  • Nail clippers (Kristina does this weekly so the quick recedes, and she doesn’t hurt me.)
  • Large scissors
  • Small scissors blunted at the end (for around my eyes and ears.)
  • Toothpaste and brush (Not my favourite, but if I get an infection in my mouth, Kristina can clean it.)
  • Clippers   (For my winter haircut)
  • Brush (One suited for my coat – you might be different and need a specific kind.)
  • Comb
  • Ear cleaning fluid (I hate this, but I get ear infections from too much time in salt water and this prevents them.)
  • Cotton swabs (For cleaning the inside of my ears without hurting me.)
  • Shampoo
  • Conditioner (It’s embarrassing when she conditions my hair, but at least I smell nice.)
  • Towels (So I don’t have to use human towels. They get testy about that. They also get annoyed when I’m wet and jump in their bed.)

Woof Woof.

Here’s what Kristina has already written about me. Lucky me – she may have given up writing my blog, but she does spend a lot of time getting my stuff ready for sailing.

 

Copyediting – Proofreading: Summary of Comments (Part One)

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

Now that I have completed  my five-part blog on copyediting and proofreading, I’ve grouped the comments into topics and ended up with too much information for one blog, so . . . I’ll split it into several. I’ll add information that I didn’t include in my original blogs and that was kindly contributed by readers of my blog.

I collected the comments from the blog series and from the LinkedIn writing group called Crime Fiction managed by Theresa de Valence.

The topics from the comments are:

  • DON’T TRUST YOUR SPELL CHECKER
  • Having Others Proofread Your Work
  • The Eye Sees What it Wants to See
  • Read it Backward
  • Read it Out Loud
  • Read it Big
  • Adjectives and Adverbs
  • Split Infinitives
  • E-Readers
  • Computer versus Paper
  • Templates
  • Taking Breaks
  • Proofreading versus Copyediting

And yup, you guessed it. I’m going to cover the bolded topic today.

DON’T TRUST YOUR SPELL CHECKER

One theme among the comments was the quest for a list of the most common words authors have issues with. You can find that list a little farther down in the blog.

The following is a humorous excerpt (paraphrased a little) from one comment I thought summed up why we have difficulty seeing the typos, and I’ll call them typos, because most of us know how to spell and we know the correct word choice, but our fingers seem to have a will of their own and type what they want.

Never met a spelling you didn’t like, eh? Well they’re (their?) hard to (too?) spot, even for those of us who can spell some and know lots of words. They hide or just sit there defiantly, while your integrative, Gestalt brain fills in the gaps and skips over extra letters on its own, without telling you. That’s why proofing is so difficult, aside from the tediousness. And you’re (your?) usually doing it at the 11th hour, under time constraints, and all your (thy?) helpful friends have abandoned you to your dire fate.
What happens to me kicking out the stops on the mighty netbook, is letters get omitted due to detritus among the keys, and the spell checker thinks “ad” instead of “and” is good to go. Etc., or is it Ect.?

There was consensus that homophones and typos that create a correct word, but not the word you want,  are a problem in manuscripts. The following are the words I received in the comments to the blog. This list contains words that other authors have stated they have issues with. I’ve bolded the ones that I didn’t include in my original blog.

  • Ad/And
  • Aisle/Isle/I’ll
  • Barely/Barley
  • Calf’s/Calves
  • Ect./Etc.
  • Here/hear
  • Heard/herd
  • He’ll/Hell
  • It’s/Its
  • Flee/Flea
  • For/Fro
  • Form/From
  • Grown/Groan
  • Manor/Manner
  • No/Not/Now
  • Own/Now
  • Series/Serious
  • So/Sew (use needle and thread)

  • Sit/Sight
  • Then/Than
  • Then/The
  • There/Their
  • There’s/Theirs
  • Throne/Thrown
  • Thin/Thine/Thing
  • Thy/Thigh
  • To/Too
  • Were/We’re
  • Whelps/Welts
  • Where/Were
  • Who’s/Whose
  • Wringing, Ringing
  • Your/You’re

For those of you who dictate your copy, you may find the dictation software created homophones throughout your manuscript. So guess what? You get to be especially careful when checking for them.

To help find this type of error, one reader suggested: the smaller your device or viewing window is, the better it will be for proofreading. Also, since such narrow focus is both tense and tedious (contradictory, but true), take frequent breaks – maybe alternate with another task that has nothing to do with this or any other book.

Another reader said: this isn’t 100% on topic, but I use the “Add to Dictionary” and “Ignore” feature in MS Word to stop the software from picking up odd character and place names as mistakes in my manuscript. If I don’t do that, then those words get flagged so frequently that I start ignoring Spellcheck completely…and then miss things like “teh” and “tihng.”

Thanks to everyone who shared how they create an error-free (okay – so as close to error-free as possible) manuscript. It’s helpful to learn how others work.

If you have other words that are often a problem, don’t be shy. Please share them with me.

Thanks for reading . . .

Copyediting – Proofreading Process articles and comments can be found at: