The stinky weather the past couple of days has been good for one thing: it gave me plenty of time to read through the proof copy of Killing. I found 17 errors, only three of them egregious. Five involved Brooklynese. I noticed in four cases that I used twenty instead of how the main character would pronounce it: twenny. It's a word that anyone would immediately understand, unlike another I'd failed to amend: ah for are. The biggest challenge of the book was finding a flavor of Brooklynese that wouldn't slow readers to a crawl.
A couple of errors involved asterisks, which I used to explain a reference. I decided to remove them from the mention of films except for Gunga Din (1939), from which I quote: "Kill for the love of killing...." The citing of music is always problematic. Record companies are tyrannical. They've sent minions into stores, threatening owners playing the radio with lawsuits for piracy, failing to realize that someone might buy or download a record heard in a shop. It's free publicity, for Pete's sake. One of the many great things about the digital age is the drop in physical sales of CDs and the loss of profits for those swine. They even require permission to quote lyrics in written works. Well, I violated that one in the novel, so sue me. I used a line from Iggy Pop's Cry for Love: "Soldiers kill for love and nobody admits it," which fits perfectly with the theme. Writers can quote each other without permission as long as credit is given. Record companies are a privileged class. What nonsense.
I made only one addition, a line of dialogue I've had in my head for ages, which could have fit in several places in my work, but fit perfectly in this one. I sent the file to Victoria, promising that I would look over only these most recent corrections upon its return. It's time to let the book go. I will upload this latest file to Kindle, as well as the new cover when the print version finally goes live at Amazon. The digital age is unbelievable. When I realized I'd been inconsistent in the use of twenny, I simply typed the word into the file's search box. It highlighted every instance of it. I didn't even have to scroll to find them. I simply clicked on the forward arrow beside the search box. I was able to immediately find the lone time I'd used den for then - in a work of 100,000 words! Amazing.
Now playing on the Martini in the Morning stream, one of the few songs of the rock era on their playlist, Van Morrison's Moon Dance. "It's a fantabulous night to make romance." Oops, there I go again quoting a lyric.
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