Formatting: the Bane of My Existence

     Formatting. It is the bane of my existence! Not just paragraph alignment and page numbers, it's so much more than that. From your body font to the space between your chapter headings to the first line of your first paragraph, formatting is literally cover to cover. Fonts and style have to match from chapter to chapter and it's so very easy to mess stuff up, especially with multiple drafts and converting your work from one size to another. As a artist there are so many options that it boggles the mind to think of them all. The question is, what do I want my novel to look like? It is amazing how generalized my ideas are. I want my book to look "professional," to fit into my genre and to be "trendy," especially where my cover is concerned. None of that tells me what font my title should be in, or how far down my chapter title should be on the page or how big my name should be on the cover. I almost want to pull out my hair or scream. I think I'll settle for an Aleve, or two (liquid gel, extra strength of course).
    I have a draft that I have been working on for years and it never behaves as I change the size of the paper I am working with. Taking my standard 8x11 and trying to refit it to a paperback 4x6 produces problems. Every time! I finally found a way to delete all preexisting formatting, but now I have to start from scratch and I already have a headache.
     The Problem you ask? Several pages had paragraphs that were disappearing in to nothingness as if text wrap had suddenly stopped working on my word doc. I have no idea how that happened, so now I am starting over. The annoying thing is that I am not sure about this book size. The publisher provided a template for the size and I am thinking about going bigger. I seriously hope I will not have to do this again.

There is only one thing I hate more than formatting and that is having to re-type something because the file is lost or corrupted. I have learned my lesson there. Save often and store well. I send drafts to my self, my friends and family in case something happens and my work is lost forever.

Do you have any formatting horror stories? Some problems? Some advice? Please share! I'm always up for learning something new.

To my fellow writers, as ever, WRITE ON!