Daisy le Fey and the Half Binder Princess

Ack! Monday Maven is late!

Can you believe I totally spaced I was the Monday Maven? (Oops!)

This means you don't get an insightful, well thought out post today. It means you get my meandering thoughts. Much like the drivel on genres, web sites, and branding I posted this morning on my blog. (Where I did remember I was supposed to post, and yet still ended up winging it.)

While Maven Darcy and Maven Lacey were busy being super-productive and actually reaching their goals, what did I do this weekend besides see Ratatouille with a six year old and take a long-awaited visit to Dinosaur World?

The first adventure I had was printing out all 400 pages of Trevor & the Tooth Fairy for my editing pleasure. (Seriously, "editing" and "pleasure" do not belong in the same sentence.) The adventure part began when I ran out of black ink and my printer decided to eat random papers in such a way as to have half a page on one sheet and half on another. It was awesome.

So, once I finally got all 400 pages printed in two columns, landscape orientation, I then cut them all in half. Once I'd cut them all in half (and put them back in order, as the cutting process naturally got them out of order) I then proceeded to attack them all with a three hole punch. As I punched three or four sheets at a time, I was then required to reorder the loose sheets yet again.

At last, with a giant stack of 8.5x5.5 neatly punched manuscript pages, I began to place them in my nifty 8.5x5.5 three ring binder (big enough so the pages are book sized, yet small enough to fit inside a purse). Sadly, my 1" binder only agreed to hold half of my manuscript.

Therefore, off I went to the Office Depot in search of a second odd-sized, over-priced binder. I was rewarded with not one but two such creatures (are binders creature? Mine are.) and was lucky enough to find them at a more useful width of 2". (Although was unlucky in that the darn things were over $8 apiece. If a full size one is $1 at Wal-Mart, why is a half-size one $8.49, I ask you???)

I then returned home with said odd-sized and overpriced binder and transferred the cropped and punched pages from the other binder (and my kitchen table) to the new binder, where they all fit quite nicely and even manage to look rather bookish and official.

Thus satisfied, I handed the whole mess over to a friend of mine who is visiting me for a couple weeks (hey, you crit for your breakfast in my house!) along with a pen and a stack of sticky notes.

(Near as I can tell, she has yet to make a single notation, but one can only hope.)

After my houseguests go back to the great white north (okay, really Indiana), I hope to have a chance to read TATTF as a reader (I haven't peeked at Daisy & Trevor's shenanigans in months) before I get my very first revision letter.

And then I plan to lug my binder with me everywhere I go, covering the pages with sticky notes until it looks like a papier-mâché piñata. (Except without the yummy candies inside.)

Following that, I plan to polish TATTF within an inch of its life (evenly spaced 1" margins all the way around, of course) and send it back to my agent for shopping.

We shall see.

Obviously, this is my first attempt at the half-binder trick. I'm still working out the bugs.

YOUR TURN: What's on your plate writing-wise for the next couple weeks? What wacky methodologies have you tried in the name of revision/writing? Please share your secrets/thoughts/tips in the comments!