More Fun in the Kitchen for the Pink and Yellow Season

Today I'll share my fun with apple chips, lemon curd and lemon bars.
First off, apple chips. I heard about these on a PBS cooking show but didn't get all the details so make them going off what I heard and what I researched. They aren't an "official" food of my Pink and Yellow Season, but I've been doing them a lot lately. A way to snack and appease my sweet tooth and not feel too guilty. Easy and fun.

1) Heat oven to 225 degrees. One of the websites I looked at in getting a feel for doing this says she makes them every time she's been baking. She just leaves the oven on when she's done but turns it down to 225. For me it's a perfect Sunday thing to do where I can set things up and walk away without thinking about it.

2) Take a cookie sheet and put parchment down on it.

3) Slice apples thinly, or use a mandolin if you have one, but then maybe it's best to core the apple first. I don't have one, so I just do what I can with my knife and then I keep the star in the middle and pick out the seeds as I go. You might get thick slices, but it's still good, just more like dehydrated apple than apple chips. On my cookie sheets I get one big apple per sheet or 1.5 or 2 small apples per sheet.


4) If you feel like it, sprinkle with something - sugar and cinnamon, or just cinnamon maybe or lemon juice or salt. I was sprinkling the slices with a sugar, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, which was good. But you don't really need it with Gala apples (the ones I use). I don't do sprinkle anything on them anymore.
5) Put in the oven for an hour (or so - I've noticed if I forget and leave them in too long it's not a tragedy).
6) At the end of the hour, take out and flip slices and put back in for another hour.


7) Pull out and put sheets on stove top to cool for a bit. Helps crisp up the chips.

8) Put in a not-so air tight container and don't put it in the fridge to store. This seems anti-intuitive. But if you put these in an air tight container in the fridge then they just get soggy. They still taste okay, but they're soggy. And they don't crisp up again. So, since I have mostly air tight tupperware, I've saved a take out container to hold the chips. But, they still go limp. They're just best and crispy fresh out of the oven.


 They're tasty and I recommend them. I'd even call them a little addictive.

~~~

Next, lemon curd. You can use lemon curd for so much. There's a lovely lemon mousse pie I'm thinking of making sometime that uses lemon curd, but you can also use it on toast, pancakes, waffles, stirred into your yogurt, over your fruit, or anything else you want a fresh bright taste. The recipes I used say you can make up to a week ahead of time, but I have made it and used it over the course of a month or more. Just keep refrigerated.

This recipe I got off of Epicurious.com and they say it's from the December 2000 of Gourmet magazine and makes 1 2/3 cups. There's another recipe from the January 2001 Gourmet that's slightly different, but it's all the same ingredients, just makes a little less.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon finely grated fresh lemon zest
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter

Whisk together lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar, and eggs in a 2-quart saucepan. Cut butter into bits and add to mixture. Cook mixture, stirring constantly, over moderately low heat until curd is thick enough to hold marks of whisk and first bubble appears on surface, about 6 minutes. I have a gas stove so I kept it on low heat so I wouldn't have the boil over I had last weekend, so it took about 10 minutes or so.

I used the whisk attachment on my handmixer and kept it on the highest setting until around the end when I switched to a lower setting so I could see whether or not the mixture was thickening. It happens fast. One minute it's watery, the next it's beginning to thicken. I also kept stirring a little longer after I turned off the burner. Don't cook too long.

You can add an egg yoke or some cornstarch to thicken it if it's not firming up, but I didn't need to. Another note is that you can use a double boiler set up to avoid the scrambled egg effect that may happen. I think keeping the burner at low and constantly stirring helps avoid that.

I happened to have a preserve container from some marmalade I had used up, so used that jar to store some of the curd because it's pretty, but Tupperware work just as well, or probably better as far as keeping it fresh is concerned. The recipes on Epicurious suggest covering the surface with plastic wrap.

~~~

Finally, lemon bars. I got this recipe from a friend of mine who got it from her mother. It also reminds me of a recipe my mom used to make when I was a kid, but that I've lost track of since. If you haven't had these before, there's a soft dough base with a lemon custard/curd "filling" and then a sprinkle of powdered sugar on top.

Base ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups all purpose flour

Custard ingredients:
4 eggs, slightly beaten
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
5 tablespoons lemon juice
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup all purpose flour

Topping: Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Blend butter, salt, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 2 cups sifted flour to make a soft dough. Press evenly into a greased 9x13 inch glass dish. Bake 15 to 20 minutes until golden.


Meanwhile, combine eggs, lemon peel, lemon juice, sugar and 1/4 cup sifted flour and blend until smooth. Pour over baked crust. Reduce heat to 325 degrees and bake 25 minutes until firm.


Cool. Dust with sifted powdered sugar.


Slice into bars when cooled.







Nice and not too sweet. Excellent with coffee or tea. Just beware of the powdered sugar flying everywhere.

And that's all for today for our continuation with the Pink and Yellow Season.

Have a great week!

Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry is Good for the Soul

It’s that time again! It’s a Friday in April! Do you have your poetry on? Below are some poems that I’d like to share on this Friday. Thought I’d concentrate on some scifi/fantasy poetry.

This first one appeared online on Everyday Weirdness January 17, 2010, which is now no more.

Adrift

Locked in silent struggle –
A prison of his own design;
He stares out in wonder
At all that he has lost.

Stars burn brightly,
Reflected in his eyes;
Retreating into darkness.
A cold and silent night.

This one also appeared on Everyday Weirdness, but on August 3, 2009:

where better to cry…

where better to cry
than the cold vacuum of space.
only the stars to hear you

And finally, a poem that appeared in the June 2008 issue of Aoife’s Kiss. You may be able to find a copy of it here.

Learning Alchemy

One night I dreamt.
I strung each of my stories
on a silken cord.

Shining in a perfect moment of opaque beauty –
transcendent –
before collapsing in a heap of dust.

One lone pearl remained.
I have been studying Alchemy.
I haven’t quite got it down
yet.

I wish I could say that
I could spin straw into gold;
turn a bushel of leaves
into a basket of coins;

or that I could take water from your well,
a pumpkin from your garden,
a rat from your cellar,
and your neighborhood paperboy –

and give you back fine wine in a golden chalice,
a royal carriage,
a fine steed,
and a man fit to be King.

Yet, I haven’t quite figured out
how to take the light that pours through me
and bend it into a rainbow.

You can find these poems and others in my poetry collection.
What poetry have you been reading or writing this month?

Throwback Thursday: Suspension of Disbelief in Speculative Fiction

This article was originally published in the April 2008 issue of Illuminata, a newsletter of Tyrannosaurus Press. It has been slightly edited and updated.

Suspension of Disbelief in Speculative Fiction

by

Rachel V. Olivier

I hate to admit this as a fellow Science Fiction/Fantasy geek, but I’ve only ever been to one science fiction convention. It was August 27, 2006 and the last day of LA Con IV, the 64^th annual World Science Fiction Convention.  I was broke (what’s new) and could barely afford the $50 day pass, but I scraped it together and borrowed a car to drive down to Anaheim from Los Angeles.  I didn’t attend very many panels, but one I did attend left me this nugget of information: Readers and viewers of speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, cyber punk, scifantasy, etc) have a greater ability to suspend their disbelief and wait for the story to unfold than the average reader or television/movie viewer.  This is why some people enjoy fantasy and science fiction tales while others seem to not have time for them.

Recent experience has jogged that bit of information loose to make me wonder, what is it in some of us that allows the storyteller greater latitude in their stories? How come some of us have no problem seeing Mr. and Mrs. Beaver having tea and toast with the Pevensies in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, while others just roll their eyes? Why do some of us not care about whether or not all the creatures and humans in 10,000 BC would be realistically seen together in the same time and place, while others will spend their valuable time researching and writing complete essays on how these beings would never be seen together in reality?

According to Wikipedia, our mostly accurate go-to source on the web, Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase “willing suspension of disbelief” to describe the willingness of an audience to accept a premises of a work of fiction as true even if it seems impossible, and even if this means overlooking the limitations of a medium in order to accept those premises. In exchange, in a sort of quid pro quo, the storyteller promises that the reader or viewer will be entertained by that work of fiction. In other words, your friends at the bar are willing to believe the yarn you’re telling about your most recent fishing trip as long as it’s entertaining to them.

It’s that “to them” that is the key phrase.  Different people are entertained by different types of stories and are willing to give a storyteller leeway for different reasons. For example, I’m perfectly willing to believe that a black Arabian horse born on the English countryside is able to tell a story from a human point of view, or that a badger, a beaver, and a rat can all sit down to tea and toast in a nice cozy hole, whilst speaking the Queen’s English, or that robots can roam all over New York or Los Angeles or wherever, cracking sarcastic jokes and transforming into gas guzzling vehicles.  There are other people, however, who are not willing to suspend their disbelief for such stories, but they are willing to believe that a millionaire and a hooker can fall in love and get married, or that someone will take a partner back after being repeatedly hurt by them and they will both go on to live happily ever after. We all have our own ideas of the perfect tale.

The problem is in making sure that the right storytellers match up with the right audience, or no one is happy. A writer is not only always trying to write a better tale, but is also trying to find a willing audience, this is why s/he sends their work out to friends, family and then writers groups and then magazines, online zines, podcasts and publishers, or even publish it themselves. There’s a drive, when you’re telling a tale, to have others enjoy it with you.

And readers, for their part, are constantly on the lookout for storytellers that hit what I like to call their “disbelief sweet spot”. They want to find those stories where they find they’re willing to go where the storyteller says s/he is going to take them.

For my part, I’m usually willing to suspend my disbelief – let it stretch a while – in exchange for a good fantastic tale.

There’s this quote at the very end of “200”, a 10^th season episode of Stargate SG-1. It’s one of the reasons I am willing to suspend my disbelief, I think:

“Science fiction is an existential metaphor that allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Isaac Asimov once said, ‘Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.’”

Pink and Yellow Season Kick Off

Around this time of year I go into my own private Pink and Yellow Season. For me, it's usually about bright sunny days, bright flavors, shiny newness and fun just for me. Not quite feeling it yet this year, but I have about some time to get into it.

One of the things I like to do during this season is experiment with lemon dishes in the kitchen. I love that burst of flavor lemon gives you. Most years I just get a box or two of lemon cake mix and a couple of tubs of lemon frosting and experiment with what to do with that (use lemon juice or limoncello instead of water, toss in yogurt or white chocolate chips or coconut, etc.). It may or may not turn out anything edible, but that's not the point. The point is to have fun and experiment. (I think I need a chemistry set.)

This year, I decided to up the ante a little and I kicked off the Pink and Yellow Season by baking a couple of different types of lemon fudge.

The recipe for the first batch I got here. It's the easier of the two I found - no need to check for candy status. It uses marshmallow cream, condensed milk, white chocolate chips and lemon extract. I grated some lemon rind and tossed that in, too. And had some of it set in a mini-tart pan, which was fun, but not as cute as I was imagining.
Though it doesn't taste like good fudge, it is "melt in your mouth". Very rich. It's something you can whip up quickly and take somewhere if you need to. And it does taste good, but not quite what I imagined it should be.

I had some chocolate and butterscotch chips, enough to make a half a batch with what was left of the condensed milk and marshmallow cream. I've packaged it and put it in the freezer to save for bad days. Again, it was good, but it didn't have that burst of flavor on the tongue that good candy/fudge rewards you with.


The second recipe I got from here. It was more complicated but it does reward you with that burst of flavor you're expecting.  Years ago a friend of mine sent me her grandmother's praline recipe. And I remember her telling me that once I started making the pralines to be prepared to keep at it until it was finished. Making this fudge is a bit like that. Once you begin you can't stop until you've poured the fudge into the containers. So have everything set out, pans prepped, ingredients measured out before you begin and be prepared to do a lot of stirring.

For me, it took longer for it to reach boiling than the recipe said it would. And also took longer for evaporated milk and sugar to reach 234 degrees than the 5-6 minutes the recipe said it would. There was at least one time when the milk and sugar mixture grew up on me and made a little mess around the burner, but otherwise, it was just a long haul of stirring.

A couple of tiny things I did differently is that I was a titch short on the lemon extract so added a squeeze or so of lemon juice. Not too much. I used white chocolate chips and not a white chocolate bar broken up. Also, I used foil and butter for the pans instead of parchment. I can never get parchment to fold and stay put. But I think next time I'd use parchment. I also added the optional yellow food coloring.

Again, this second recipe takes more work, but you are rewarded with that candy flavor that you can't mistake. I tasted a couple of broken pieces as I was packing the fudge away for later and I felt like I'd gone to heaven and back.


I have a few more lemony recipes planned throughout the Pink and Yellow Season. I'll report back and let you know how they turned out.

Throwback Thursday: Childhood: The Gateway Drug to the Fantastic

Crossposted in Blogetary:

This article was originally published in the July 2010 issue of Illuminata, a newsletter of Tyrannosaurus Press. It has been slightly edited and updated.

Childhood: The Gateway Drug to the Fantastic

By Rachel Olivier

When I was in high school and college Nancy Reagan had just begun her “Just Say No” to drugs campaign and much was made of “gateway drugs” such as marijuana or gateway alcohol, like beer. Girls were warned about gateway behavior down “that” road – the road to slut-hood, shame and who knows what else.

I remember that also around this time a friend of mine was persuaded by me and a few other friends to read the Tolkien trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. Those of us who had read it had also cut our speculative teeth on series such as The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and books like The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. We didn’t know anyone who had read those books who didn’t like them. And we didn’t want to know people who had read them and didn’t like them.

It was a huge shock, then, when that friend showed up one day to say he’d read the trilogy finally and would never read it or anything like it ever again. Why? Because it was too good. Too tempting for him to read the books, get involved in the world and not want to do anything else or read anything else. I didn’t see anything wrong with that, but apparently, for him, it was a “gateway drug”.
That was a long time ago and I hadn’t thought about that incident again until recently. I’ve been watching movies like UP (2009) and The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and rewatching movies such as Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) and Flash Gordon (1980). While two are animated films and two are live action, they are all similar in that they are basically movies for “kids” that adults enjoy as well. In fact, much of the subject matter is very adult, despite the fact that kids are the target audience.

In UP, for example, a young boy grows up, falls in love, gets married and then watches his wife grow old, fade and die. And that’s just the first 15 minutes of the movie. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is basically about a con artist with big dreams trying to make a life for his family. Something Wicked This Way Comes deals with a handful of temptations that adults have a difficult time with, but two ten-year-old boys are expected to resist. Flash Gordon is basic Good versus Evil, with a football player leading the Good Guys, but it also explores some adult themes (torture and sex being but two).

In many ways these stories are not much different from straightforward “children’s” stories such as The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham or any other fairy tale or myth or legend shared with children when they are young. They use an imagined world with imagined characters to explore themes such as Good versus Evil, resisting temptation, fighting for what you believe in, love, loyalty and friendship. These are stories children read or have read to them. Somewhere along the line, many children abandon the fairy tales for “real” stories that take place in contemporary society.

For many of us, however, one of those many fairy tales or “children’s” books like Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll or Robin Hood by Howard Pyle, or even Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling became our “gateway drug” to the world of the fantastic. Because we fell in love with these stories, we learned we could joyously suspend our disbelief for other stories about exploring outer space or traveling to the center of the earth or being able to change into an animal.

We love the fantastic and suppositions of what the world may become in the far future on a distant planet, or what it might plunge into in a dystopian future. In the parlance of current 21^st century speak (leaving Nancy Reagan far behind) it is our “drug of choice”. Some of us are lucky enough to be born into families where many members are also lovers of the fantastic. Some of us have to seek out others who love it as much as we do. I still end up defending science fiction and fantasy to my mom and dad who think of vampires, werewolves and zombies as “weird”. (“Why don’t you write stories about real things?” is a common question.)

I guess what I’m saying is that if you’re part of this speculative fiction “fad” that “all the kids are raving about” (psst – remind your friends and family that it’s not a fad and not going away any time soon), you aren’t alone. You’re part of a group of people who enjoy your imagination and enjoy the endorphins that wake up when you explore planets and realities outside of your own. Be proud. Hold your head up, look people in the eye and say: “Hello. My name is _______  and I love science fiction and fantasy.”

Throwback Thursday: Archetypes and the Villain: Towards more complex characterization

Crossposted on Blogetary.

This article was originally published in the July 2008 issue of Illuminata, a newsletter of Tyrannosaurus Press. It has been slightly edited and updated.

Archetypes and the Villain: Towards more complex characterization

by

Rachel V. Olivier

A few weeks ago I took a writing workshop on archetypes and mythology at the Craft and Folk Art Museum here in Los Angeles. It was more of a private writing type of workshop – looking at yourself and your family for personal archetypes, etc., but several of us were there to work on our fiction as well. According to the woman who led the workshop, most people have knee jerk reactions to at least one or more archetypes and this is probably where they need to focus their psychological and emotional healing. Fully integrated people (i.e. those rare and lucky people who have no psychological and emotional baggage) rarely have those same knee jerk reactions.

Now just to pause a moment – archetypes are not stereotypes, though they can lapse into stereotypes. Archetypes are basic personalities that are so ingrained in the collective psyche that they occur in most stories written or acted out. The Hero, The Villain, the Damsel in Distress are three very general archetypes that are familiar to everyone. The Father, the Mother, and the Child are three that exist in every single culture around the world.

The first thing that popped into my morbid brain during the workshop was the following thought: Serial Killers must really be fractured (not integrated) personalities because they actively seek out and hunt the archetypes they have knee jerk reactions to. Of course I didn’t bring this up in the workshop, but I wrote it in my journal and got to thinking about all the different ways Villains (seeing as most Serial Killers are Villains, unless of course your name is Dexter…) behave and why.  There are many books, films, RPGs, etc., where the Villain is simply the Villain. There is no explanation or analysis for why they are the way they are. They just are evil.  That is the part – the archetype – they play.  It works, but at best, it creates a two-dimensional character and at worst, it saps energy and tension from the story. If a writer is going to tell a tale with rich characterization the story will feel lopsided if they spend all their time showing why the Hero and his or her friends are the way they are and no time on why the Villain is the way s/he is.  The writer needs to find out which archetypes the Villain is reacting to in his or her life, and why, thus creating a more complete and engaging character.

According to Tami Cowden (www.tamicowden.com), the author of The Complete Guide to Heroes and Heroines, there are at least 16 separate villain archetypes: Tyrant, Bastard, Devil, Traitor, Outcast, Evil Genius, Sadist, Terrorist, Bitch, Black Widow, Backstabber, Lunatic, Parasite, Schemer, Fanatic, and Matriarch. There are probably lots of others and a host of variables, but her list seemed a good place to start when looking at and understanding the Villain.  Her descriptions are just 3-4 sentence explanations of what these Villains are and how they work.  The Tyrant, for example, is a bully, craves power and hoards it, and will crush anyone who gets in his way.  But why is he the way he is? Was he bullied? Was he powerless as a child, watching helplessly as his world was destroyed by the archetypes in his life (The Mother, the Father, the Bitch, the Traitor, etc)? This is an important part of not only making the story more rich and appealing, but also in showing how the Hero can overcome the Tyrant and in creating a more interesting plot. Typically, the seeds of the Villain’s downfall are found in how s/he became what they are.

A better example may be illustrated by Lex Luthor, Superman’s Nemesis.  It may not be so obvious in the older Lex Luthor, but the younger one, as played by Michael Rosenbaum in the CW television show Smallville, paints a very complex character. This Lex is a Villain, no doubt about it. He’s a Devil: charming, charismatic, able to exploit the weaknesses he sees in others for his own ends. He not only is able to rationalize other people into compromising their views and seeing his side, but he’s also able to rationalize to himself why he does some of the things he does.  He is also easily one of the more likable characters on the show. He is so good at justifying himself that it is easy find yourself conflicted when rooting for the “Hero” – Clark Kent – to win the day, because you almost, almost, want Lex Luthor to win the day.  He just sounds so reasonable, which is a characteristic of the Devil Villain archetype.

Lex Luthor is a strong example of showing what can happen when writers choose to show what the Villain reacts to, why the Villain is the way s/he is.  The writers have actively demonstrated the ambivalent relationship that Lex has with his father, both seeking his approval and competing against him.  In fact, in every relationship Lex Luthor has had that a normal child would learn love and trust from, he has been betrayed in. Being the “good” son that he is, he has done his best to not only survive, but thrive, in the competitive environment his father keeps him in.  Thus, the engaging Devil character who is able to charm and manipulate allies and foes alike becomes the engaging Villain that the audience now has sympathy for. The emotional conflict hooks the audience, pulling them through the story to the final outcome.

Some writers turn this idea on its head by creating an Anti-hero – the Villain as Hero, in effect.  Some examples are the protagonists of Dexter, House, or the short-lived series Profit. Stephen Donaldson did it with his protagonist in the Thomas Covenant Chronicles. George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series has many characters that walk the line between Anti-hero and Villain. These people are not nice people. They are NOT “Hero” material.  In fact, they are distinctively, disturbingly, unlikable people. The trick is, again, to explain why they are the way they are so that the audience has some sympathy for them.  They are no better than the Villain, but having been put in the role of protagonist the audience wants some reason to think they might be redeemable.  So, what archetypes were in the lives of such Anti-heroes? What archetypes from their past are they reacting to in such a way that they have become the inimical characters they are now? As the writer explores the whys and wherefores behind these questions, they are better able to plot a story that is engaging, strong, and very readable. One that will grab the reader by the throat and pull them through to the end.

Five tips on proofreading your own work

I and others have addressed this before, but I thought I would address it again as spring is coming, students are writing papers or theses or dissertations and writers are trying once again to pull out their manuscripts and do some writing whilst sitting incognito at the park or at least outside at their favorite cafe. So, below are five tips on how to proofread your own work.

1) Find someone else to read your work. I know, I said proofreading your own work, but having a fresh set of eyes to look over your work is truly the best thing you can do. It doesn't have to be a paid proofreader. It can be a fellow writer or classmate. Trade papers or manuscripts with them. Determine what you want them to look for (just typos? awkward sentences? Inconsistencies?) and what you will be looking for in their writing. Stick to those objectives. It's much easier to see something in someone else's work than to see it in your own. Once you get your work back from your friend or classmate, thank them and go to your safe place and be prepared to see what you missed. (If your friend wandered off the instructions and wrote in editorial remarks then feel free to ignore those, or take them into consideration. This exercise is all about the proofreading.)

2) Put your work away for an extended period of time. This is called letting your manuscript "bake". Students don't always have this option as they have due dates and times - unless of course they've actually written their paper in a timely enough manner that this is possible. If you don't have a due date, let the manuscript "bake" for a good month or so. If you are a student and the paper is due soon, then put the paper away and don't look at it until after you've had a good night's sleep, a good meal and have had time for your brain to hit "reset" - a good solid 12 hours if possible. Your brain is a very efficient machine and fills in where things may be missing or wrong in your copy. What you're trying to do is give your brain a chance to "forget" the copy you've been working on and see it fresh. This way you have a better possibility of seeing clearly missed or misspelled words or rewritten sentences that haven't quite been cleaned up, yet.

3) Go Old School and proofread the hard copy. Yes, you love your laptop. You curl up with it at night to watch movies and use it during the day to do homework or write your Greatest American Novel in between side trips to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. And yes, you'd rather save money and the environment by not using paper and ink on printing out what will be just another marked up copy. But your eyes see a computer screen differently than they do an actual piece of paper. The type on your computer screen is constantly moving, where the type on a piece of paper is still on the page. You may actually catch more mistakes on the hard copy because of this. So, print out your work, grab a favorite pencil or red pen (whatever you like working with best that you will see clearly), curl up in your safe place and read your piece, line by line.

4) Read it out of order. There's an old adage that proofreaders read copy backwards to catch all the mistakes. That is only true some of the time, but it does help if you're reading lists, figures or haven't been able to get enough distance between you and your manuscript or paper. Grab a ruler, that usually helps. What you're going to try to do is look at the copy as you would a math problem. You aren't "reading" the copy - you are just looking at the copy as discrete symbols strung together in coherent single words and then sentences. This is a trick that's only good for catching typos, though you might find the occasional awkward sentence (especially if your brain still remembers diagramming sentences from junior high).

5) Read it through one more time. You will never get all the mistakes. I work for a newspaper where writers, three editors, a proofreader and graphic designer all read through most of the monthly paper before it goes out, and we don't always catch all the mistakes. But read it through one last time before hitting send. If there are important names or terms that you are using in your paper or manuscript, then make sure you have a list of them next to you and make sure all those are spelled correctly, if nothing else. Spot check for periods, especially at the end of paragraphs. If there are mistakes you make all the time (then vs. than vs. that, your vs. you're, its vs. it's, their, they're and there, etc.) then use the Control F (Find) function to go through and look for those places where you may have used one or the other.

In the end, you may just end up finding that one glaring mistake AFTER you hit send, but at least you know went through and found all the others. Or, at least MOST of all the others. Well, at least you gave it the old college try. But hopefully these tips will help you produce a cleaner and more professional document than you would have otherwise produced on your own.

But if you'd like help proofreading and copyediting your dissertation, thesis, paper or book, please make sure to keep Putt Putt Productions in mind.