writin' sticks

[Anne Frasier]

I can't be the only person who has this problem. What kind of pencil do you use on your copyedited manuscript?????

Instructions always ask that the author make corrections in colored pencil. No pen, No red pencil. No circles, no underlining, no highlights.

This all makes perfect sense except that I've never been able to find a colored pencil that doesn't make it look like I used a crayon. I end up with a wide, blurry line that can't be erased. To get around some of this problem, I first make changes with a regular lead pencil because I usually erase and revise a few times. Once I'm finished, I erase the final revision and rewrite it with the clunky colored pencil. But I'll bet there are some decent colored pencils that actually work well for editing. Any suggestions???

[Daniel Hatadi]

Oh man. I just followed this Salvia thing to its logical conclusion and ended up reading a fair few of these stories. Freaky and amazing stuff, indeed.

http://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Salvia_divinorum.shtml

[Anne Frasier]

jesus.
that makes acid seem like Pez.

[Stephen Blackmoore]

Sounds like fun.

[Karyn J. Powers]

"Every time it rains, it rains panties from heaven." A panty for your thoughts." "If I had a panty for every time..." "Like a bad panty, she turns up at the wrong time." (Like that one, 'cause it's true.) "Panty wise and pound foolish." Oh boy, that has possibilities.

[Anne Frasier]

karyn, i've been laughing about this all day. :D

[I. J. Parker]

Oh, my! That brings back memories! I finally solved the problem after 5 years of struggle. Good red pencils are readily available, but those are used by the copy-editors and instructions to authors always indicate to use another color (not red and not black). And there my problem started. The stores only carried red or black. Money no object, I tried every type of colored pencil lead in expensive automatic pencils. They broke instantly. I resorted to having a (green) STET stamp made to preserve a few leads for other changes. Finally, this year I ordered colored pencils through Office Max. They are Prismacolor Col-erase and even the erasers work on them. Good luck!

[Anne Frasier]

i ended up getting the Col-Erase, and found that a vinyl eraser works FANTASTIC. Much better than the eraser on the pencil. I erased so much that I actually had to sweep the mess into a dustpan. :D

But overall very nice. I ended up using VIOLET out of several color choices. Didn't erase as well, but was very readable and actually showed up when I made a copy of material. Many colored pencils don't show up in copy form.

[Anne Frasier]

oh, and when i colored my hair last night and got dye on my skin and couldn't get it off -- that's a damn fine eraser.

[Joy Calderwood]

Lol, Anne.

I find that some of the Col-Erase leads give a better line than others. One color blue makes a nice dark line and another blue doesn't really seem to rub off on the paper very well, for example. Luckily the art store where I buy mine lets you try them out.