It’s officially December now, so it’s safe to start playing Christmas music (although please, not the depressing variety), putting up decorations, and indulging in the traditional, alternately depressing-yet-satisfying hindsight-is-20/20 look back over the year about to end (and maybe the world, if you believe those Mayans).
So grab that mug of eggnog, cozy up in front of the fireplace, and enjoy a look back with me over 2012: It’s been a hell of a ride.
[The following post first appeared January 5, 2012.]
I confess: I’m a technophobe.
Or, perhaps more accurately, I’m techno-resistant, which frustrates my geek husband to no end, poor thing. Up until roughly three years ago, I’d never sent a text, I still did all of my writing longhand on legal pads, and I had no idea how to use a GPS. All right, I still don’t know how to use a GPS.
I used to resist out of fear that I would irreparably harm whatever gadget happened to be at hand by pressing the wrong button, because, as we all know, modern technology always comes with a well-camouflaged but easily-activated self-destruct button.
Now, however, I think I resist because even though, on a rational level, I know there are faster, easier (and cooler) ways to accomplish my goals through the skillful use of technology, spending the time to learn those skills really irritates the crap out of me. And then, by the time I’ve learned them, the technology has already morphed into yet another version, which I then have to learn all over again. I don’t want my phone to do 800 different things; I just want it to make my call, for cryin’ out loud.
Yeah. Not a geek. But I know I need to catch up with the rest of the 21st century, so I am trying, even if I’m ridiculously slow to adopt, which brings me to the subject of today’s post, my recent introduction to the Search and Refine feature in Word as an editing tool.
All right, all of you out there laughing at how backwards I am: off with you! I’m speaking to my people now, those who still fight the persistent fear that they can make their laptops explode just by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete one too many times. (You can’t, by the way. I checked it out.)
As you may remember from my last post, I recently started working with an editor, hereafter referred to as “C.” Just like “Q.” and “M.” in the Bond movies, she’s fun to work with but she uses fewer pyrotechnics. C. is helping me prepare my manuscript for publication this year. When I first met with her last spring, she recommended I read the book Write in Style, by Bobbie Christmas. I gamely purchased a copy, read the subtitle, “Using Your Word Processor and Other Techniques to Improve Your Writing,” and promptly buried the book under a stack of files on my desk. Word processor. Harumph.
The book remained buried until I sent C. my first 5 chapters. She inquired if I had used the Search and Replace feature on my manuscript yet, (referred to in said book). Of course I hadn’t; that would’ve involved learning what those other buttons on “the ribbon” do. [Who names these things, anyway?]
C., who probably had me pegged from the start as a techno-resistant arse, appealed to my practical side instead. She suggested that if I used that technique before having her make her first editing pass, it would save me money, since I wouldn’t be paying her to make all those refinements. Moved by her gesture of self-sacrifice, I plugged my nose and decided to give it a shot.
C. provided me with a list of overly used words that she regularly sees in her work, and I set out to search the first 5 chapters of my manuscript for those awful offenders. I was skeptical (after all, my work is perfect as is), but as I searched, and discovered, offender after offender, my attitude soon changed.
I found instance after instance of those pesky little words—words like “only,” “just,” and, the mother of all offenders with 224 appearances, “so.” In all fairness to me, however, the search did turn up “so” not only when it stood alone, but also when it appeared within other words and expressions, like “masochist,” “sophist,” and “son of a b—.”
My reactions as I searched and replaced veered from “Holy cow, what was I thinking when I wrote that?” to “What was I drinking then?” and, on at least one occasion, “Clearly, I wasn’t drinking enough!”
When I finally finished the process (and keep in mind, this was just the first 5 chapters), I was broken, a shell of my smug former self—and a true convert. When I read back over those 5 chapters, the difference shocked me. It wasn’t just better; it was radically, drastically better, and I felt like an idiot for not having used the feature sooner.
Thank you, Peanut Gallery, for not providing confirmation.
My point to all of this? I have learned that technology is not the enemy.
Wait. No, I still kind of think that.
How about…the enemy and I have called a truce? My fellow techno-resistant lambs, if you don’t yet use the Search and Refine feature in your writing and editing, it’s a superb tool for showing you where every little weakness in your work is hiding. It can’t fix them for you, you still have to put in that work yourself, but it pinpoints them in a fast, easy way that makes the revision process so efficient, you wonder (as with most technology), how you survived before you discovered it.
So thanks, C., for the suggestion—I’m setting off on my next Search and Refine mission now with the next 5 chapters, and feeling like a Lean, Mean, Writing Machine.
Oh, wait—you’re right, I did gain some weight over the holiday. Guess I’ll have to settle for Mean Writing Machine now instead.