I truly believe the typo fairies wait until the envelope has been sealed, or the submit button clicked, to sprinkle their evil magic mistake-powder all over everything, because you can read through something a hundred times and there's nothing there, then, WHAM, suddenly there is.
It's the supernatural at work, I'm certain.
-Suzanne
That explains it. I'm going with that one.
@Isabelle, congratulations on your first submission! I think the first is the hardest, though it doesn't always feel easier even after that.
@Izz, I'm glad you're okay. Where I live in Illinois (about 50 miles away from St. Louis) tornadoes are commonplace in the spring and sometimes fall. The one that shut down Lambert didn't reach us, but the storm that produced it did. Our tornado siren gets a workout every year, and occasionally they do damage in my small town. It's scary, but I guess I'm used to it. Now what happened down south, that's worse than anything I've ever been through, too. The scale is terrifying.
@Nate, I don't think that title is freakishly long. Is it a light-hearted story with comic elements? Longer titles than that can work for those. The title is intriguing, but you run the risk of what I think of as Throw Momma from the Train syndrome (Billy Crystal's character is writing a book called Throw Momma from the Train about their experiences, and Danny Devito's character Owen gets his published first--Momma, Owen and Owen's Friend Larry. Crystal freaks out until he realized it's a children's book, in case you're not familiar with it. It's a good movie, especially for writers, I think.) Longer titles written that way can lend themselves to children's books or comic works. I don't think yours sounds comical, but I find myself wondering why you chose to write it that way instead of putting the character in the most prominent place (The Girl Caught Between the Ground, Sea and Sky).
I'd say if the ground, sea and sky are just as important as the girl on a character-level, then you probably have it just right. If not, maybe consider changing it. Since you feel like it's freakishly long, maybe that's your instinct telling you to do something.
I also think that if the story's a winner, the editor will change any title he or she doesn't like.
@soapdish--go you! Attack it!
As for me, by 9 am I'm going to be neck deep into article writing, for which I will reward myself later this afternoon by turning to fiction. I'm about to pour my first cup of coffee and then take my daughter's camera outside. When I pulled in this morning after taking her and her friends to school, I saw our red fox family again. We have a momma with baby foxes living under our shed. She got some pictures and video of them the other day, when I first spotted them. We saw two babies, then. There were four out there this morning.
They're apparently used to seeing us come and go, so they're not afraid of my car or us walking back and forth to it. Try to get close to take better pictures, and the momma chuffs so the babies hide. I don't want to get too close, because I don't want them to get too familiar and not be afraid of humans, but I'd love to get some more pictures before the babies are bigger and they move on. Here's a poor quality video for anyone interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yVJbw4m63U4
So coffee, a shot at pictures, and then work. I also have to perform my pledge:
*puts hand over heart* I shall hereby stay the hell out of P&CE all day, stop checking my email at 9 am, stop looking at online news at 9 am, and get as much work as I can get done before noon so I can play with and potentially torment made-up people guilt-free this afternoon. I swear on Captain Kirk's tricorder, so be it, make it so and all that.
Shelley