Sharpie Gell Highlighter, Sharpie Pen, and Paper Mate Ink Joy on my rough draft.

I am now in the editing phase of my book.  I have it printed out and in a folder, and when EB gives me a second, I try to get a chapter read.  I keep finding minor inconsistencies in the storyline when I went back to the beginning from the middle to flesh out the plot.  I can’t pass it on to any of my friends yet–not until I at least have the story straight and most of the obvious errors corrected.  This is what I did when I worked seasonally for SXSW earlier this year, so it would be against my nature to have someone add commas for me.

And for some reason just reading and redlining this thing is taking longer than writing it!  But I happened to get some office supplies in the mail to review, which was lovely timing because I did so happen to need highlighters, ballpoint pens, and a felt tipped pen.  It’s an editor’s dream come true!

First let’s talk about these highlighters.  They are kind of amazing.  Did you know that Sharpie makes a Gel Highlighter?  Whaat.  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  It came in a pack of pink, orange, and yellow.  I’m pretty traditional when it comes to using yellow.  Pink and orange are kind of distracting to me.  But whatevs, when the yellow runs out I’m totally using the other two.  If you run back and forth over the word it smudges it, but so does a regular highlighter.  But the idea is that it won’t dry out.  And with a kiddo that runs around trying out all of my pens and leaving them open, this is a major plus.  The downside is that the cap doesn’t stay on the end.  They should always fit on the end.

Speaking of drying out, I’m a huge fan of a ballpoint pen.  I love that they don’t smudge, bleed through the page, and you don’t have to worry about finding the top.  So the clicky-top ones are my fave.  These Paper Mate Ink Joys in a pack of four was just right.  It came with two black ones, a red, and a blue.  I hardly ever use blue, but I like free things.

I used a lot of felt tip pens/permanent markers in school when drawing in sketchbooks, but I hated taking notes with them.  They go right through the lined pages in the spiral.  I was all set to think this Sharpie Premium Pen would go unused by me, but it was surprisingly smooth to write with.  I might even like it over the ball points, which is a complete shock (as far as one can get shocked by using pens).  And when I looked on the other side of my double-sided rough draft, it didn’t bleed through!  I didn’t realize this was possible.  It’s a fancy stainless steel has a nice weight to it.  It’s the kind of pen you’d give someone to sign some binding contract, like trading for your kids to pay off all of your school loans.  Not that I’d ever think of doing something like that.  Who would ever.

Sidenote:  the terrible two’s were a bit much for me this morning, and guess who veto’d a nap!  Yes, EB is rubbing her peanut butter sandwich on her feet right now.

Peanut butter feet.

I guess EB’s case of the coo-coos is balancing the universe since she let me nap for 4 hours yesterday.  Right?

Editing Jells.