This blog is not about politics. It’s about survivorship, and it will be short.

Ted Kennedy is a survivor. He has lost family members under tragic circumstances, has seen one son battle bone cancer, a daughter battle lung cancer, another son battle drug addiction. He has broken his back in a plane crash, and lives with the guilt of driving the car in which a young woman died, an accident that derailed his greatest political dreams. But he keeps coming back. He has spent the last forty years fighting for those less fortunate than him, has learned the art of compromise, has taken stands that, while not always the most popular, are ones in which he deeply believes.

Now he battles brain cancer. Yet there he was last night, clearly thrilled to be speaking about the causes of his heart at his party’s convention. He didn’t tug on JFK heartstrings or evoke RFK images, though he might have done both. When the audience roared their approval of his words, he laughed in delight.

Here is a man making the most of life, even in the midst of chemotherapy and radiation. For all we know, this was his last prime time appearance. For all we know, this may have been his last public appearance, period. The prognosis for the cancer he suffers is not good.

But last night, he was upbeat and strong. We could all take a lesson from him.

Posted by Barbara Delinsky at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I’ve put it off too long. My assistant and I need new computers. Our current ones, which we’ve had for a combined total of twelve years, are old, overloaded, and slow. Technology has moved ahead, along with our own needs, especially when it comes to website machinations.

But I’ve put it off, put it off. To me, there is nothing more stressful than getting a new computer. My stomach churns. I break out in a cold sweat. I’m convinced that I’ll LOSE IMPORTANT INFORMATION – lose it FOREVER, and that I won’t be able to pay bills, much less write.

To some extent, I’ve postponed the inevitable because the timing has to be right – meaning, I have to be between books. I have to have finished all the work on one and still be weeks away from starting another, so that I have time to work out bugs, get my screen looking “right,” feel comfortable enough so that I can focus on what I write not the instrument I write on.

This past spring, I knew the time had come. Lucy and I were simply spending too long waiting for our computers to perform simple tasks. Oh, we did the clean-up bit that techies suggested, but it didn’t help. What is it about aging computers that makes them slow? Computers are supposed to be the ultimate multitasking devices. Why is it that as they get older, they can only do one thing at a time?

Sounds like people, y’know? So I’m walking on thin ice here. But there’s no help for it. I can’t wait five minutes for my email to appear.

Okay. So it’s only three minutes. Well, maybe only two. But it used to be faster!

What to buy? The problem is that I’ve heard only bad things about Vista, so I don’t want to go that route. Yes, I can get a new machine with XP on it, but my gut tells me that XP will be permanently replaced in a year or two with whatever operating system Microsoft designs to replace Vista. Do I want my new computers to be obsolete so quickly?

I’ve asked lots of people, and one thread keeps emerging. IMac. I was told that Apple stores are wondrous places filled with people who know their computers inside and out, so I went to see for myself. Once there, I was paired up with Katherine, a woman of my generation who asked all the right questions and quickly came to understand my needs. Two hours later, after she told me that I was glazing over and perhaps needed a break, I purchased a MacBook to try out at the lake. I gotta tell you -- I love it. It’s fun and it’s fast. Yes, it’s different from my PC, so there will definitely be a learning curve, but hey, I can still learn.

I haven’t made the final commitment on buying desktops for Lucy and me, but I’m ninety percent there. I have a guru coming this morning to evaluate our needs. Should we decide on iMacs, he’ll do the set-up. Oh yeah. I know. "Take it out of the box and plug it in." But then there’s assuring compatability with existing printers, installing Word and Excel, and connecting to the Web, and I’m not good with glitches. It gets back to the stomach churning, cold sweat thing I mentioned above. If this guru can make the transition smoother, he’s well worth his (nominal) fee.

I have lists of questions for him, but here’s one for you. If I bite the bullet and spring for new machines, what do I do with the old ones? Any suggestions?

Posted by Barbara Delinsky at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

You don’t want to know.

Actually, you do, if you’re reading this, so let me explain.

The copy-editor is the person who reads my manuscript after my editor and I are completely done with it. She (perhaps he, but this time around it’s a she, so I’ll use the feminine) reads through every word with an eagle eye for inconsistencies. She doesn’t smooth out wording; my editor and I have done that at an earlier stage. Rather, the copy-editor makes sure that if John Doe has brown hair in Chapter One, it remains brown throughout the manuscript. Same with eye color and the spelling of a name.

A copy-edited manuscript can be an author’s nightmare. At a time when you’re moving on to the next book, you get this … thing … that is all marked up with red pencil questions. Often the questions are simple, but not always. I had one instance where the copy-editor caught a major error in my chronology. This took a lot of rewriting to repair – at a time when I didn’t want to be doing any rewriting at all. My creative juices were directed elsewhere. Emotionally, it was tough coming back.

So, what does a copy-edited manuscript look like? It’s a printout of the manuscript, with either markings or flags on the pages where the copy-editor has questions. Usually, I’m asked to approve a small change that the copy-editor wants to make. Sometimes, I’m asked to clarify a point, which entails my adding a phrase or a sentence. Occasionally, the copy-editor’s question is one I can answer with no change at all to the manuscript. For example, way back, a copy-editor asked me why I created a town called Dover in Massachusetts, rather than using a real town. I had to explain that Dover is a real town.

And the copy-edited manuscript for While My Sister Sleeps? It was actually pretty clean; I was able to go through it in four hours. There were a few sticky points. For example, at the start of the book, I described the tires of a car “crunching” over a dirt road. The copy-editor questioned whether a car would actually crunch on dirt, and suggested that I might want the road to be gravel. No, I did not. I wanted a dirt road. And our tires do crunch over the dirt road that leads to our house at the lake. There are always little stones in dirt, hence the crunch. I suggested either adding the word stones, or leaving the original wording. Would you readers balk at the idea of tires crunching over a dirt road? I’m betting not.

A more serious issue had to do with the initials Q.E.D. I used them several times in a way that the copy-editor said was not conventional usage. It was fine, I felt. But I changed it anyway. Again, I’m not sure that any but the most picky of readers would be bothered by my usage. But it wasn’t worth the risk. I substituted, “Enough said,” for “Q.E.D.” It did mean making the change in every spot where Q.E.D. appeared, then adding the replacement phrase in a separate scene to make it all work.

I sent the manuscript back to New York yesterday. Next I see it, it’ll be in book form. These are called “galleys” or “author’s pages.” Truth be told, I let my sister do the reading then. If the point is to catch typos, I simply don’t see them. I know the manuscript too well.

Posted by Barbara Delinsky at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wow. I have to tell you; my publisher gets it right. I’m talking about the cover for my latest book, While My Sister Sleeps, which goes on sale on February 17, 2009. Some books have an obvious cover angle (think mom and baby in Family Tree). While My Sister Sleeps had no obvious angle. I’m sure there were brainstorming sessions aplenty within the art department at Doubleday, and a first photo shoot was done. The proposed cover was sent to my agent and me. Neither of us felt that it worked.

This may answer a question many of you ask. Do I design my own covers and, if not, how much input do I have? No, I don’t design my covers. My forte is writing, not art. The one attempt I ever made at telling my publisher what kind of cover to use was with the original edition of Uplift. The art department gave me exactly what I asked for, and the result was awful! I apologized; they went back to the drawing board and came up with something far better; I haven’t dictated a cover since.

That said, I do get cover approval. If my agent and I feel strongly that a cover doesn’t work, the publisher will change it. Sometimes the change is minor, like adding flowers and a hat to the cover of The Woman Next Door. Sometimes minor changes won’t work. Such was the case with the original cover that was sent me for While My Sister Sleeps. We had serious concerns, which apparently were shared by some at Doubleday. The art department did a whole new cover shoot – and the result is spectacular! A different model for one of the characters, different clothes, an outstretched arm – bingo! Click here to take a look.

So this piece of the puzzle is in place. The next piece? The copyedited manuscript. More about that in my next blog.

And after that, a new photo shoot. Now there’s a blog topic. I HATE having my picture taken. Stay tuned.

Posted by Barbara Delinsky at 06:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)