On September 8, I proudly posted a photo of me
holding a proof copy of “V. B. R., My Mother’s Story” on Facebook. I admitted in the post that it was probably
too soon to brag about this accomplishment. Was I ever right about that! My
anticipation that the book would be available by the end of the month exhibited
all the optimism of a rank amateur. I’d worked so hard on it, edited it over
and over again, and was certain that when I opened the covers I would find this
wonderful, perfect product. Wrong again! Not only did I spot errors, my proof
reading friends found plenty as well. And though I appreciate all their
suggestions other than correcting errors, I chose not to make some of the changes.
One that I did make was to number the pages, but
had I known what a nightmare this would turn into for me, I might have said "Who needs page numbers? The book isn't that long." You see, the computer and I have a love-hate relationship. I love
it, but it hates me. Did I mention that I am also in the process of learning a
new computer, of moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1? I’m
certain that some nerdy kid somewhere with a serious disrespect of senior
citizens is taking some twisted pleasure in my difficulty in making this switch.
But back to the insertion of page numbers. A normal
person with a good working knowledge of Word might have done this with ease. Even I have done so in the past. Not so easy this time around. Two main
problems: I didn’t want to number the title page and other front matter, and I was
switching the document from the old 7 to the new 8.1. After enlisting the aid of friends, and
spending untold hours on the various help sites on the internet I found that
many of the things they suggested did not appear in any of my tool bars, but I
finally got it done. So proud of myself, I was about to pop! Then I converted
the file to a pdf for uploading to be printed. Where did that extra blank page
come from? And better yet, how to get rid of it? You guessed it – the fun was
just beginning. Other tries resulted in not one, but multiple blank pages that
did not appear in the formatted Word document, but would find their way into
the pdf. Or the numbers would start in places other than where I thought I put
them.
Why did I continue to put myself through all this,
rather than just scrap the idea of numbered pages? Sheer stubbornness. The more
times it all went wrong the more determined I was that this was not going to
get the best of me. Cross your fingers for me. An hour or so ago I
uploaded what I hope is an edited version, complete with page numbers!
If it doesn't work,
I'll probably snatch every grey hair out of my head trying again and again to fix it. Should that
happen, and you see me running around completely bald-headed, please lend me a cute hat.
