All My Friends Use Spell Checkers

I think publishing needs a country western song, or maybe a country publisher song, and I've decided to start with the chorus:

All my friends use spell checkers

And that's as far as I've gotten. It needs a verse about my wife taking off with a slick talking trade rep in our book delivery van, backing over my dog and leaving me with nothing but remainders. But I want to go on the record as saying I do use a spell checker, I'm just not very good at it. So much for the theory that the tools make the workman.

All my self publisher friends also work out of home offices except one, and he's got a couple other businesses running so I'm not going to count him. I'm looking to get out of the home office myself, but I'm having a hard time finding the right situation. It doesn't help that I'm a bad shopper and spoiled by a decade of living in the same apartment.

My current ideal is a two story brick building or house on a Main Street type commercial district in a small town around here. I'd really like the first floor to be currently used as an office or retail, so I can just move in upstairs and dedicate the first floor to an office/bookstore. Maybe I could hire my editor to come in and give writing seminars or something, get some use out of the space. Maybe I should attend. I've just had enough of my work being in front of me, 24x7, and I want some free time and space to work on other work.

I'm even thinking of moving my primary publishing platform back to a desktop PC, just so I can't carry the office around with me. I'm not a religious man, but I haven't touched my computer on the Sabbath (Friday dusk to Saturday dark) for a decade. I used to be champing at the bit to get back online, but now I'm just happy to give my mouth a chance to relax. I unplug the laptop and close the lid as well, it's important to give your beast a day off (Exodus 20:10 repeated in Deuteronomy 5:14).

My great grandmother, the first woman to publish a novel in Hebrew, borrowed heavily from Biblical quotes and grammar. I sat with a Concordance as I worked through the translation and simply looked up any phrase that struck me as bibley (spell checker doesn't like that, but I'll be damned if I'm going to use bible-like, literally:-)

Some of my publisher friends use grammar checkers as well, but I can't stand how Word pesters me over split infinitives. It would be easy enough to work grammar checkers into the song. Who wouldn't sympathize with a publisher sent to the slammer for bad grammar.

Don't answer that.