#10 Nonplussed: Irony, the winking bastard

I couldn't bring myself to read my book or listen to my CD for a while. I know my limits. I know my habits of hyper-critical self-talk. I know that once that defeating loop starts, it's hard to stop. I knew not to listen or read until I could do so with the kindness of a friend. Last week felt like a good time to read the book.

When I clean, re-arrange furniture, or redecorate, I like to leave the room and then walk back in as if I've never been there. Reading my book felt a lot like that.

I got nearly to the end thinking, "Ok. This is okay. Yes. No big typos. Not perfect. I would have said that differently. I wish I could rewrite the 'Enemy' chapter. But yes. This is fine." And then...

Page 38.

Paragraph 3.

"As a writer, I am about to confess something embarrassing: I misuse words all the time. All the time. I thought the word 'detrimental' meant, simply, important until I was 28 and my then-boyfriend used it (correctly) in a sentence. I thought 'nonplussed' meant confused..."

Irony, you winking bastard.

Well. Nonplussed DOES mean confused, Jelly Bean. That's not what I meant to write. What I meant to write was:

"...I thought 'nonplussed' meant unimpressed..."

Unimpressed. THAT was what I thought nonplussed meant.

I suppose this error is not a deal-breaker. But it is annoying. At least it falls into an appropriate paragraph (about my flounderings with the English language).

I fixed it in the file on my lulu.com account. That's where I'm self-publishing; and all future printings will be correct. But in the meantime, I have 200 books in a plastic bin under my desk waiting to be sold at shows and mailed to online patrons (where crickets live). I paid for those suckers, and I don't have the budget to scrap them and reorder.

Boo.

My sales are light enough that I could just take a red pen, cross out the word "confused," and write "unimpressed" in the margin every time someone buys a book. I think that would be funny. But maybe not everyone would. Would you?

BUSINESS MEETING

1. The album is now on iTunes. Downloadable here.

2. It's also at CD Baby. Here.

3. And Spotify. Here.

4. The book is not yet available on eReaders, but it will be. I sat down to make the e-version and the instructions made me implode. So, eventually... Once I can make it through the instructions without imploding, there will be an e-book version. (With the proper misuse of nonplussed.)

That's it. Word to your mother's hip.