I Sound Like a Drunken Chipmunk

I feel like I’ve been proofreading this book forever. Mostly because I’ve been saying I was proofreading it since mid January. This is a lie I’ve been telling to everyone including myself. I wasn’t proofing. I was line editing. Which is a whole other thing. But now I am done. Thank god.

I’ve been actually proofreading since Friday. And I should be done later today. (Which is a much more reasonable time frame. And you can see why nearly a month was beginning to alarm me.)

I also have a cold right now. For some reason I always have a cold at this point. I think it’s because the universe thinks it’s funny. Because the final stage of my proofreading involves reading the book aloud to myself. (It’s the best way I’ve found to slow my reading down enough to make sure I’m really reading everything in front of me. Also, it gives me a little bit of extra distance on the text so I can get all last-minute judgemental about it.) And while I’m not sick enough that I can justify not working, I have to stop reading on a regular basis so I can cough violently. And I sound like I’m hoarse shouting the book at myself.

Rick: So it’s like Warren Ellis is reading your book to you?
Me: Yes. Warren Ellis is reading my book to me.

I’m not sure if this is an improvement over a previous characterisation of this process that claimed I sounded like a drunken chipmunk but I guess I’ll take it. It means I can drink whisky while I’m doing it, right?