Indexing.
What indexing involves is going through every page of a manuscript and deciding what goes in. Is this word/phrase interesting? Too obscure? Too obvious (thereby generating a zillion page hits and being utterly useless)? Do I need things in the Index that are also in the Table of Contents? Did I already index that word? Should I write it down again anyway just in case? Will a reader be annoyed to look up that word and turn to the page and realize it’s just an aside? Will a reader be annoyed to look up that word and not find it? Will a reader ever in a million years care about that phrase?
And there’s lots of laborious typing and my shoulder hurts.
I am indexing The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book right now. So if I don’t post much, please forgive me. Also, please feel sorry for me.
[…] You know how indexing isn’t fun? Turns out re-doing the index to put words and phrases into categories is even less fun. […]
*feels sorry* 😉 it will pay off in the end though!