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[Harlock Hero]

Not to be all contradictory or anything, but I heard from a few sources that double-spaced Courier 12 is the closest way to approximate manuscript-to-printed page counts. 1 inch margins all around, and definitely no justification, yeah.

Of course, the editor I work with out of the UK demands only Verdana 11, so I imagine that this is very dependent upon the actual publisher.

[KeithHernandez]

Courier New is the best, just from a personal preference type of trip.

also, what is justification the way you all are using it?

[Harlock Hero]

also, what is justification the way you all are using it?

Justified type is like what you see in a book, where the letters are subtly stretched or squashed so that the ends of the lines or type line up perfectly up and down both the left and right sides (as opposed to having a ragged right hand margin).

[littlefallsmets]

I have been using Times New Roman 12 in a standard Microsoft Word page without any kind of modification. Tabbing in a half-inch for the opening of a paragraph and writing single space except for a double-space between different ideas.

You know, three or four related ideas run together single-space and then... a double-carriage.

Similar to how I write here except with an indent at the beginning of each paragraph.

It's not like screenplays, you know, where the formatting rules are easily learned and obvious.

Hm.

[AugustWest]

Quit worrying about typography.

[Victoria Waterfield]

Quit worrying about typography.

Indeed. Unless the point of your book is that it's formatted in the way of a jerk, format it in any way that's not the way of a jerk and you'll be fine.

[KeithHernandez]

What about Poem Concrete?  ( I think I am confusing it with Poeme Electronique by Edgard Varese, and don't really know what the thing I am talking about is called).  Anyways, like, the song Bat Macumba by Os Muttantes that actually looks like a bat on paper.

Okay, it is called concrete poetry and I think it might only be a Brazil thing.

[dejavroom]

Okay, it is called concrete poetry and I think it might only be a Brazil thing.

Indeed it is and we're[1] much ashamed of it, kinda just waiting until everybody forgets about it. I mean Christ, the rest of the world had been playing with ideas and emotions in verse for centuries and there we came along with the equivalent of playing with letter blocks ("alphabet blocks"? I don't know the proper nomenclature). Sheesh...

As for not worrying about typography... it's not "typography", it's a set of practical procedures one has to take when comes time to send the thing out in an accepted format. Indeed, littlefallsmets doesn't have to worry about that *now*, but he'll have to worry about it at one point, if he wants his manuscript to have a fair chance between the piles of material clogging the editors's desks. They are required by profession to be fastidious fucks, and it's all about saving time, really: Standardization means that the editor won't have to adjust his reading habits to each manuscript he cracks open to read. Non-standard formatting will work *so hard* against you, you have no idea...

[1] - by "we" I mean the younger generation of writers and poets. We actually roll eyes when the subject pops up in conversation.

[KeithHernandez]

I thought it was really cool, but, uh, I guess I don't know what the words in the song mean.

[theinevitable]

when I was in 4th or 5th grade I made a poem about Christmas that was in the shape of a christmas tree. it was pretty rad at the time.

[KeithHernandez]

It probably was.

                                           it
                                        is the
                                      christmas
                                  time when gifts
                              are given to loved ones
                      christmas is the time of year that the
                 Romans said was Jesus' Birthday to stop the pagan
              mushroom holiday  Even the reindeer ate the mushrooms
     that were red and white like santa claus.  Love is the best gift to give to
                                someone you love. Jesus
                                 was love, understand?
                                   I want a gift card
                               

Sorry, I am supposed to be writing a huge capstone paper.  Also, It looked more like a tree in the edit box.

[AugustWest]

As for not worrying about typography... it's not "typography", it's a set of practical procedures one has to take when comes time to send the thing out in an accepted format. Indeed, littlefallsmets doesn't have to worry about that *now*, but he'll have to worry about it at one point, if he wants his manuscript to have a fair chance between the piles of material clogging the editors's desks. They are required by profession to be fastidious fucks, and it's all about saving time, really: Standardization means that the editor won't have to adjust his reading habits to each manuscript he cracks open to read. Non-standard formatting will work *so hard* against you, you have no idea...

No question, but the time to worry about that is after the manuscript is written.

[littlefallsmets]

Like I say, muttering to myself over formatting isn't slowing me down, either way.

I'm over 50,000 words in from very late September to the middle of November.

I just... I dunno. I think too far down the road sometimes, I guess.

Thank you all, by the by, for putting up with this very self-centred line of questioning of mine.

If there was a "can everyone" function, I'd surely use it.

[dejavroom]

I thought it was really cool, but, uh, I guess I don't know what the words in the song mean.

Oh, I have no doubt that as a song it works all fine and fun, or that theinev's poem rocked a silly bunch.

My exasperation stems from the fact that down here there has been an organized (and thoroughly successful) effort of academic validation of this movement as a respectable form of poetic expression[1], as a worthy specimen for the annals of big league literature, which it so obviously isn't... Just a gimmick - which is not without its merits (George Herbert used to shape some of his poems to reflect their subject matter, like "Easter Wings", which look indeed like wings. But of course that was a bonus that he threw in, it wasn't the fuck*ng *main feature of the poem*).



[1] - Since the 50's, to be sure... the damage is already done. But at least now we're distanced enough to just pretend they never existed.

[AugustWest]

Like I say, muttering to myself over formatting isn't slowing me down, either way.

Well, see that it don't.