{"id":120,"date":"2009-09-09T06:50:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-09T06:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/09\/9-secret-insights-on-nines-day.html"},"modified":"2009-09-09T06:50:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-09T06:50:00","slug":"9-secret-insights-on-nines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/09\/9-secret-insights-on-nines-day.html","title":{"rendered":"9 Secret Insights on Nines Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is September 9, 2009,<\/span> which means it’s another nerd holiday<\/a>: 09\/09\/09. Depending on your perspective, we won’t see another set of repeating dates until October 10, 2010 (10\/10\/10), and no repeating single-digit dates until January 1, 2101 (01\/01\/01).<\/p>\n

So clearly, this is a day when you need to get your fill of mystical events and vibes of symmetry.<\/p>\n

In honor of this special day, I present 9 Secret Insights into My Writing Career:<\/span><\/p>\n

1. <\/span>I write in Microsoft Word, 12-point Times New Roman, with a 1.5 paragraph space setting.<\/p>\n

2. <\/span>I always come up with the chapter titles before I write anything else. Sometimes even before I know what will be in<\/span> the chapters.<\/p>\n

3. <\/span>Before I begin writing, I find out what my publisher expects in terms of word count. I then determine how many words will be in each chapter. Then I make sure I come close to that word count.<\/p>\n

4. <\/span>I never have to pad out a chapter to meet my self-imposed chapter word count. In most cases, I end up remove stuff because I write too much.<\/p>\n

5. <\/span>I have several writing tics that my faithful readers have no doubt noticed. These include asking and answering one-word questions (That? Can be annoying), self-indulgent footnotes, and use an over-reliance on the colon (which is also a problem I have in real life).<\/p>\n

6. <\/span>I use Wikipedia a lot for my initial research. While it’s not reliable as a single source, it’s often a good introduction to a subject and makes me aware of connections between events, people, and ideas that lead me deeper into “real” research. So pretty much I love Wikipedia and I don’t care who<\/span> knows.<\/p>\n

7. <\/span>I am more nervous when I give a completed manuscript to my wife to read than when I first turn it over to my editor to read.<\/p>\n

8. <\/span>Because I write so often about religion, I can’t type the name Chris<\/span> — my brother-in-law’s name — without automatically adding the “t” to the end of it: Christ.<\/span> This instinct may also be on account of me being super-pious.<\/p>\n

9. <\/span>Due to my advertising\/copywriting background, I have gotten to write the back-cover copy for almost all of my books. As I understand, not many writers get this opportunity. Not sure if that’s good for me or not — sometimes I wonder whether I’m too close to the subject to take on such a big marketing role. Bonus: I also wrote the back-cover copy for this book<\/a>. And this one<\/a>. And this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n

—————<\/p>\n

Anyhow, happy 9s Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is September 9, 2009, which means it’s another nerd holiday: 09\/09\/09. Depending on your perspective, we won’t see another set of repeating dates until October 10, 2010 (10\/10\/10), and no repeating single-digit dates until January 1, 2101 (01\/01\/01). So clearly, this is a day when you need to get your fill of mystical events…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lists","category-writing"],"yoast_head":"\n9 Secret Insights on Nines Day - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/09\/9-secret-insights-on-nines-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"9 Secret Insights on Nines Day - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today is September 9, 2009, which means it’s another nerd holiday: 09\/09\/09. 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