Karen Sandler

Karen’s Blog

  • Oh, Microsoft Word, How I Love and Hate You

    This week, YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday prompt is, What word processing program do you use to write your manuscript, and can you share one handy trick you’ve learned in that program that has helped you while you write?

    As you’ve probably guessed from the emblem to the left, I use Microsoft Word (on a PC). And from the title of this post, you might have inferred that Word and I have a bit of an uneasy relationship.

    You might think that my issues with Word arise from my being one of those writers who’s computer-phobic, more comfortable writing longhand or on a typewriter. Ah…no. I was thrilled to give the typewriter the old heave-ho when we bought our first home computer in 1983 (a Kaypro II running WordStar). I’d been working as a software engineer for six years by then, and had an MS in computer science from UCLA. So I had (and still have) strong opinions about how intuitive a software user interface should be (very intuitive, IMHO). Yes, Word remains a very powerful tool for word processing (I’m a thousand times more productive using Word than I was at a typewriter). I do continue to use it, but I confess that at times I wish it were a live thing so I could give it a good, hard poke.

    Taking a calming breath now. As much as I use Word and appreciate its functionality, I do wonder how people with no computer background cope with some of Word’s, shall we say, less intuitive features. For instance, when I’m working on my first draft, I like to write my chapters as individual files, then stitch them together into one big file when I’m ready to edit. To accomplish that, I first do a SaveAs for my first chapter (or prologue), naming it something like Awakening draft. Then I scroll to the end of that chapter and insert a section break using Page Layout/Breaks/Next Page. I then go into the header so I can turn off Link to Previous. My running headers include the chapter number, and if I don’t turn off Link to Previous, the chapter number in the header for the new chapter will be the same as the previous one. Then I use the Insert/Object/Text from file to drop in the text of the next chapter. I run through this process for each chapter until I have the complete manuscript.

    Easy-Peasy, right? You followed all that, didn’t you? I guess you would if you already knew how to do it, but if you didn’t, you might be a bit at sea tracking my instructions. And this process has changed slightly with each new version of Word.

    I’ll tell you something I really do like about Word, though–tables. I use them for everything from organizing my agent submissions, to keeping track of my page/word count (both on a daily/weekly basis and overall count), to chapter outlines, to worldbuilding. Here is a nifty table I used to develop some of the backstory in Tankborn:

    Loka Population

    So, yes, I have a love-hate relationship with Microsoft Word. And yes, I often rant and rave about it to my poor beleaguered husband. But please, don’t make me work without it. 🙂

  • RTW – My Favorite Book I Had to Read for School

    Today YA Highway‘s blog prompt for Road Trip Wednesday is What’s your favorite book you had to read for a class? First of all, school of any kind was a mighty long time ago for me. We did have books back then. Yes, they were paper bound between covers, not on papyrus scrolls. But it’s a little hard for me to remember which books I read for pleasure, and which ones I might have been assigned to read.

    But I did happen to read quite a wide range of books in 10th grade. We had the best English teacher ever, Mrs. Luckensmeyer. She was definitely a factor in me becoming a writer. One of our weekly assignments was to fill two pages in our composition books (front and back of the two pages), which really inspired my creativity.

    I also loved how she had us do book reports. We were free to pick any book we liked from the school library. After reading it, we would hand it over to her in a one-on-one session. She would then flip through it and ask random questions about the book.

    Okay, this would probably be terrifying for those students who never actually read the book. You couldn’t fake one of Mrs. Luckensmeyer’s book reports, like you could if you did it in written format and referred to Cliff’s Notes. But I thought her book reports were great. (Did I mention I was kind of a teacher’s pet?)

    So I read some pretty interesting books. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, for instance. And the one that I think was my favorite of the ones I read in her class because it was just so darn weird.

    Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I remember it being a little horrifying (a guy wakes up transformed into a cockroach!), a little gross (the guy is injured and starts turning all gooey and pus-filled!), and a little (a lot) bizarre (who turns into a cockroach anyway?).

    Not the usual kind of book a 14-year-old reads. But at that point in my life, I was choosing books by their title. The title was cool, so I grabbed it off the shelf.

    I later read plenty of classics–Dracula and Frankenstein, most of Mark Twain, plenty of science fiction and fantasy. But Kafka’s Metamorphosis has stuck with me all these years. It still gives me a chill just thinking about that man-to-cockroach transformation.

    So how about you? What favorite books do you remember fromschool? Creepy, wonderful, heart-wrenching? Have you read them since, and do they hold up? Let me know in the comments.

  • My Father’s Daughter

    Years ago, my mom told me a story about my dad that was both funny and telling. Early in their marriage, my dad decided to paint the picket fence surrounding the house they lived in. The thing is, he didn’t just get out a can of paint and start painting. He had to figure out a better way. As my mother told it, he spent more time rigging up a contraption to hang the paint can around his neck for handy access than he did actually painting the fence.

    I am so my father’s daughter, luckily with some modifications. While I have that same compulsion to find that “better way” to do a task, I resist that urge when the straightforward way will do. But I can come up with thingamajigs with the best of them.

    For instance, I’ve been spending more hours than usual at my computer working on the developmental edit for Awakening, the sequel to Tankborn. I was ending up in a fair amount of pain by the end of the day. Not only was there some carpel tunnel type inflammation, the pressure on my wrist bone from my mouse pad and laptop led to quite a bit of soreness.

    So I put on my thinking cap (the one I inherited from my dad) and considered options for protecting my hands. I went digging through my fabric supply in the garage and came up with some black fake fur I’d used to create some stuffed animal or another. I started out by just cutting a couple rectangles, then folding them in half for extra padding. Resting my hands on those made a world of difference to my comfort.

    But I still had a few issues. How did I keep the rectangles from unfolding? How did I keep the pads on my wrists? Once they were on my wrists, how did I keep them from slipping too far down my arm?

    What you see here is what I came up with. I stitched the rectangles into squares. I added a piece of black elastic to hold the guards to my wrists. Then, to keep them from slipping down, I tied on a couple of hair bands. Hmm, I suppose I should have looked for hair bands in black to keep the same color scheme.

    This is how they look in action. They are dorky looking in the extreme, but since I had all the material on hand, they were free to make (and not too time consuming). Plus, they work just fine, at least to pad my wrist bone. As a protector against carpal tunnel syndrome, they suck, but that wasn’t their purpose.

    For that, I had to rearrange my work space. I use a laptop, and I could never get a very good wrist angle while typing on the keyboard. Not to mention with the screen being down at desk height, my neck was having issues with my head constantly tipping down to see the screen. So I did two things. One, I got an external keyboard with its keys laid out in a slightly more ergonomic way. It allowed me to a) have my forearms level with my wrist (essentially parallel to the floor) and b) have a comfortable angle between elbow to fingers as I type rather than straight on.

    The second thing I did is elevate my laptop. This allows me to look at the screen straight on rather than tipping my head down. I feel rather smug that I didn’t have to buy the rack it’s sitting on. It was tucked away in the garage (because we never throw anything away), just waiting for a brilliant idea to put it into use.

    What you can’t see in the pictures is that I have a drawer open on the mouse side, and a board on top of it to give my arm support when I’m mousing. All of these changes have made a big difference in my comfort as I make my way through my manuscript.

    Unfortunately, my cats tend to thwart my ergonomics when they lie in my lap and drape themselves across my arm. Casper here isn’t as much a problem as Tenka, who suspends half her 14-pound body across my left arm. Ouch.

     

    But I think my solutions are pretty cool. And I think my dad would be proud.

  • RTW – Best Book in August

    Yikes! August is nearly over, so YA Highway‘s blog prompt asks, What was the best book you read in August? I say Yikes! because this being August 29th, I only have three more days until a book deadline. Remember that giant, evil Stay Puft marshmallow man from Ghostbusters? Imagine him as August 31st, and you’ll get an idea of how that deadline is starting to feel to me. Minus the sticky-sweet white stuff.

    Anyway, I digress (I digress a lot in my blog, don’t I?). My favorite book in August is a bit of a challenge since it’s really more a series I’ve been reading. That is, a certain subset of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series. Back in July, my son and daughter-in-law stayed with us a week between when they moved out of their apartment and when we all went back east to help them move into their new home. Near the end of that week, my son recommended this particular set of Vokosigan books. He knows what I like in SF/fantasy (great characters), and I think Bujold is da bomb, so I started downloading the sub-series to my Kindle, starting with Memory.

    As I read Memory, I quickly figured out that I really ought to read another book, Mirror Dance, before reading Memory. So I put Memory aside, and started reading Mirror Dance. Then, partway into Mirror Dance, I realized that, strictly speaking, I should read Brothers in Arms before reading Mirror Dance. Ack! I consulted my son, who said he’d never read Brothers in Arms, but enjoyed the rest of the sub-series anyway. So I forged ahead, deciding that I’d go back at some point and pick up Brothers in Arms.

    So, in the latter half of July and all through August, I’ve read (in this order), Mirror Dance, Memory, Komarr, and am just about to finish A Civil Campaign. Apparently, a novella which I’d read some time ago, “Winterfair Gifts,” follows A Civil Campaign, so I guess I was already out of order. Roberts would frown.

    So, favorite book? Although I’ve loved all of these (and am really glad my son recommended them), I’d say Komarr is my favorite. It features a very cool mystery subplot within a fantastically well-developed science fiction setting. And it sets up the final book, A Civil Campaign, splendidly.

    If you haven’t checked out Lois McMaster Bujold, I highly recommend her. She’s a master of character, complex world-building, and intricate plot. She handles science fiction and fantasy with equal skill. Her Sharing Knife and Chalion series are simply wonderful.

    Sigh. I guess I better get back to work. Stay Puft is leering at me from the corner of my office. Is that a whip in his hand?

  • RTW – My L-O-V-E List

    When I saw this blog topic on YA Highway‘s Road Trip Wednesday, the old TV show The Love Boat immediately came to mind. In fact, if you remember that show, you have to read the title of this post the same way the announcer did on the show.

    But I digress. The idea for the love list in this context comes from this blog post. In Stephanie Perkins’s post, she describes how she starts a new project by writing a list of all the reasons she loves her story. As she goes, Stephanie adds details to her list. YA Highway invites us to do the same about our own story.

    In my case, I am in the throes of a re-write of Awakening, book 2 of the Tankborn series. Maybe I should spell it throws because there have been moments I’ve been tempted to throw the computer across the room. My occasional fits of writer pique aside, the re-write is actually going smashingly well (which has nothing to do with me wanting to smash my computer) and there are plenty of things I like about the story.

    So, my love list:

    great characters
    very cool world
    wonderful creatures
    fun revisit
    exciting plot twists
    deeper look
    secrets and revelations
    set up for book 3

    These are off the top of my head and maybe aren’t as specific as they’re supposed to be. I guess I want to keep some stuff close to the vest since the book doesn’t come out until spring 2013. But there have been many cool surprises with this book, with characters doing things I never expected they would. So I am actually having a lot of fun with it.

    So, who do you love? Let’s hear about your own love list.