So I haven’t posted in a while because I am, once again, editing my novel Imminent Danger and How to Fly Straight into It. I had to drop everything for pretty much the entirety of last week in order to slog through the 120k words of the story. My deadline? Sunday, 4pm, because it was at that time that the first annual Book Editing Bash was set to commence. I know what you’re thinking — “Oh god, did she make it? Did she finish editing in time? The horror!” Stop panicking. I made it. You can relax.
My good friend Kaleigh printed off nine spiral-bound copies of the book for me, and I then had a handful of friends over to my apartment for the Book Editing Bash. What, you might ask, is the Book Editing Bash? Basically, I’m going to send my manuscript in to iUniverse very soon, and I wanted to make sure that all grammatical mistakes, logical flaws, spelling inconsistency, etc. were purged from the document before submission. So I thought, how can I entice people into proof reading my book? Hence the Book Editing Bash.
It was incredibly fun. I whipped up a bunch of alien-themed snacks and beverages for my guests to munch on while they lounged on the sofas/armchairs and edited my book. Some of my favorite snacks included the Rice Ssrisk-y Balls, Jsgarn Eggs, and the five-decker sandwich whimsically entitled “The Approach to Alpha Centauri Prime”. For drinks we had Saluzan Sunrises and Black Eye Whiskey. The whiskey was actually just Dr. Pepper, so several of my guests added rum to make it more whiskey-like. Less editing was done once the alcohol started flowing.
As you can see in the picture, red pens were provided with each copy of the manuscript, as were sticker sheets with sparkly smiley faces. I told my friends to stick one of the smiley faces whenever they got to a part that made them laugh out loud. Most people loved the idea, and others, like my brother, scoffed and said that he would stick to red pen. Fine, Jesse, but don’t come crying to me when your manuscript is the least sparkly of the lot.
All in all, the Book Editing Bash was a great way to get people together and excite them about reading/editing my book. It cost perhaps $250 overall — that would be for food and printing costs — but it was well worth it. Within the next two weeks I should have nine marked-up manuscripts in my hands, and be well on my way to producing a final, fully edited, marketable book. Huzzah!
Reality Show on Mars?
Okay, when I first saw this pop up on my Facebook news feed, I thought I was crazy. But it’s true. Basically, a Dutch company has a plan to put a permanent settlement on Mars by 2023. Even crazier, they are going to make the settlement into a reality TV show. As in, these people will not only be living in tiny little pods on MARS, they will have every second of their lives recorded on camera and broadcast to the entire world via a live, 24/7 internet stream.
They will start auditions in 2013, where they will choose four men and women to be on the first flight to Mars. They will then go into the desert and train for ten years, and then blast off in 2023. After that, the company (called Mars One) will send up four colonists a year until 2033. That makes 40 people living on Mars within the next 20 years! And like I said, this is a permanent settlement — as in, no going back once you’re there. Has anyone ever read the book Legacy of Herot? This reminds me a lot of that book. I just hope the Mars colonists have better than the Herot colonists.
Read more about Mars One here and here.
What do you think?
If you were offered the chance to go live on Mars for the rest of your life, would you take it? I can’t even imagine living permanently in what basically amounts to a windy, cold desert… but then, this is MARS we’re talking about. Maybe it would be worth it. Although if you got into trouble, help would be a long, long way away.
Michelle Proulx - Author 
