The Journal: Update and Adding Italics

In today’s Journal

* End of a personal era
* Still looking
* Topic: How to Create Font Attributes
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

For me, an era has ended. No longer having the need for a place to enjoy my cigars and with my wife’s help, I spent most of the day yesterday moving my writing and business computers out of the Hovel and back into my office in the house. So dispatches from the Hovel have come to an end.

For those of you who follow the saga of Little Bit, my youngest daughter, the move annoyed her. Not that she didn’t want me closer at had to give her things she wants, but she preferred the office remain the way it was. She doesn’t care for disrupted routines.

However, as I’ve explained to her, she (like I) will acclimate, and in the meantime it will be better for both of us to have the company of the other. You can only imagine the patience with which I explained that to her, the grace with which she accepted it, and our mood since. To help you imagine it, I will tell you that we are both Scorpios.

I’m still looking for a program I can install that will make typewriter sounds as I type. IBM Selectric would be nice. If you know of any, please email me with the URL, or leave a note in the comments on the website.

In several comments on a recent post on PWW, several commenters mentioned they wished they could use the italics and bold and underline attributes in comments on websites. I wrote some brief instructions there. Here’s a better explanation.

Topic: How to Create Font Attributes Using HTML

Yes, using HTML. And Yes, you can do it. It’s a simple matter of using what I call the left and right carat keys (they look like < >) and remembering proper nesting: last open, first closed.

If you want to apply only one font attribute, say bold, there is no nesting. You open bold attribute by inserting a left carat ( < ) followed by a b (not case-sensitive) and then a right carat (so > ). Then you write the word or passage you want to appear in bold. Then you repeat a left carat ( < ) followed by a backward slash and a b (so \b, still not case-sensitive) and then a right carat (so > ). For any purists out there, yes, you can also use an S (for strong)instead of a B to indicate bold.

In plain text the “code” before and after the b would look like <b></b>. That’s all there is to it, and whatever’s between those two bits of HTML code would appear in bold.

To indicate italics, use the same code, but instead of a b, insert an i (or em, for “emphasis”). And to create underlining or underscoring, use the same code but insert a U. As an aside, in the old days when books were typeset, a writer would underline in his manuscript words that he wanted to appear in italics in the finished book. So underlining was used to indicate italics, so you don’t really need both, and of course italics is the preferred attribute.

Re “nesting,” if for some reason you want to make one word or passage both bold and italic (for example), you would do so with the same code. Apply either the italics or bold first and the other second, and then close them in reverse order: Last open, first closed. That’s it. Any questions, email me.

Using HTML code isn’t exactly about writing, but I thought you might find it interesting. It’s at least nice to know some of what’s going on behind the scenes.

Talk with you again when I can.

Of Interest

See “The World According To Writers, A Guide For The Unruly” at https://prowriterswriting.com/the-world-according-to-writers-a-guide-for-the-unruly/.

See “Writing Dystopias” at https://mystorydoctor.com/david-farland-writing-tip-writing-dystopias/.

The Numbers

Fiction words yesterday…………………… XXXX
Nonfiction words today…………… 650 (Journal)

Writing of (novel)

Day 1…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX

Total fiction words for the month……… XXXXX
Total fiction words for the year………… 309655
Total nonfiction words for the month… 2730
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 118850
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 428505

Calendar Year 2020 Novels to Date…………………… 5
Calendar Year 2020 Novellas to Date……………… X
Calendar Year 2020 Short Stories to Date… 12
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 50
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 208
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31