After four books, I've a good sense of what I like and don't like about publishing. What I like is writing the book. What I don't like is publication. The best part of the latter process, I've come to think, is the style sheet. This is a document prepared by the copy editor to let the author know how the publisher spells or presents terms about which there might be some debate. It reads like a grocery list from the author's subconscious, the particularity of the author's interests stripped of sentence and story, laid bare without meaning. It's organized alphabetically. Here are my favorite letter lists from the style sheet I just received for my next book,
Sweet Heaven When I Die, coming from W.W. Norton in August 2011:
A
Afrobeat
Aijalon
alef (Yiddish)
al-Qaeda
American Top 40
anti-utopian
Acquire the Fire
Arapaho
F
facefirst
fake-whisper
federal
feng shui-ers
filth-punk
G
Garden (for MSG)
gelt
Geimende aud dem Weg
Gibeon
giml
Golden Arches
Goth
Gott
goyish, goyishe
Ground Zero
H
halfsies (n.)
Hanukkah
Harold and Maude
head shots
hell house (n.)
hell-house (adj. before n.)
Herr
hip-hop
hip-huggers
holy-spirit (adj. before n.)
homeschool (v.)
J
Judenrat
jujitsu
K
kairos
KISS (band)
kumbaya
W
Walmart (no hyphen since 08)
Western (for movies, books, and “attitudes,” etc.)
Western Edge
West Texas
wolfangel (1 word)
woodstove
Z
Zapatista
