Copy editing

Possibly in another life, I should have been a proof reader/copy editor as I read many books and often find mistakes. I've mentioned the series of books about DCI Warlow¹ written by Rhys Dylan, and over the past few weeks I've reread all the books. In doing so, I found several mistakes that I pointed out to the author; some of these arise because apparently I have been reading early or library editions, where the errors have been corrected in the final published version. But in one book, 'A word with the dead', I found several errors as noted below.

• In chapter 5, it is written "Warlow took the mountain road back to the town. And though he'd heard of the hospital ... and over the river to an easy to miss easy-to-miss sharp right."
• Chapter 16 ends with the words "I think most couples can say if their honest".
• Chapter 17: "Detective Constable Craig Peters stood in the kitchen" - since when is Craig a DC?

I wonder whether I am wearing out my welcome chez Dylan, but this is what he wrote in response: All good catches that everyone else has missed. Keep polishing that eagle eye! I wonder whether he will send me pre-publication drafts of future books so that I can proof read them.

A few days ago, I watched on TV the film 'Patriot Games' with Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan, so of course I had to return to reading books set in the Ryanverse². I didn't fancy reading 'Patriot Games' so I went to one book that I have read only a few times, "Debt of honor"³ (DOH). I hadn't got very far into the book (the first chapter is confusingly titled 'Acknowlegements', at least in my epub copy) when I came across this sentence: Sally and little Jack were doing well at school  and Kathleen would turn two in another month. There's nothing wrong with that sentence, I hear you say, and indeed there isn't. But the possibility of continuity errors exists if one is writing a series, and the more books there are, the higher is the possibility of continuity errors (eg the example that I quoted above about Detective Constable Craig Peters).

What did I write the last time⁴ that I wrote about Jack Ryan and his books? In the much earlier book "Locked on", Jack Ryan decides to run for president for the second time. His third child, Katie, is reported as being 10 years old and his fourth, Kyle, is aged 8. "Locked on" was written several years after DOH, so that sentence is congruent with DOH - Kyle has yet to be born. Yet in "Act of defiance", Katie and Kyle are now twins (they've been referred to as twins in other books as well). Continuity error.

Internal links
[1] 2117
[2] 1710
[3] 473
[4] 2005

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This day in blog history:

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206	09/10/2009	Firebird triggers and autoincrements	Programming, Delphi, Firebird
763	09/10/2014	Literature review: getting down to business	DBA
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Ajovy 2

I picked up my second automatic syringe of Ajovy¹ from the pharmacy last Wednesday. When I came to inject, I removed the needle guard but for some reason, I thought that too much of the syringe had been revealed. A moment later, the syringe started squirting its contents over the kitchen table and on the floor. My dose had been wasted.

Fortunately, the next day I had an appointment with my GP on other matters (mainly cleaning up the mess regarding my stomach pains and reducing the dosage of omepradex back to 20 mg daily) and I took with me the syringe so that I could discard it in the clinic's 'sharps' bucket. I told the nurse what happened and she reckoned that I could get a new syringe from the pharmacy; I doubted this as the pharmacy has a special order for me and so there won't be any extra syringes.

I mentioned this to the GP who said that if I phone the pharmaceutical company's service line, I could probably get a replacement syringe. She gave me a new prescription and signed it. When I got through to the support, I explained what happened and eventually was passed on to a nurse who went through all that had happened. She asked for the prescription which I had scanned in the mean time and said that a pharmacy would deliver a new syringe on Sunday. She also wanted to be online with me when I injected, something that I forgot.

The pharmacy got in touch with me on Sunday and said that the earliest that they could deliver was Tuesday (ie today). This morning the dog started barking with apparently no reason, meaning that there was a delivery man outside. He gave me the syringe that had been solidly packed in a cool box and I gave him the paperwork and the old syringe.

When I came to inject, I though that the needle guard was a simple piece of transparent plastic guarding the head, but when I came to remove it, the same part that was removed last week came free. I then pressed the syringe to my belly and I heard the click that meant that the syringe was now working. It looks like the only thing wrong with the original syringe was my expectations. Presumably next month will be much smoother.

Does the medication work? My 'headache log' has three entries for September and in two cases, I noted that rizatriptan didn't seem to make any difference so these headaches might well be 'dehydration headaches' caused by the hot weather. I'll see what happens this month.

Internal links
[1] 2137

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412	06/10/2011	Rest in peace	RIP
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