Curiosity is often troubling. Writing “Green Cabin” in first person past tense did not feel right. It was limiting what I wanted to include from Stanton’s personal observations describing his surroundings and people he met and confronted. There’s no way anyone sees all the details of their surroundings or even of the people they must deal with. Third person allows me to do that for him.

I decided I would do a find and replace as a cheap and easy way to move to third person past tense. Hah.

First, Word for Apple has stuff like that hidden. I researched it, Googled it actually, and took notes. It seemed simple enough. I typed in I with a space before and after in Find and he with a space before and after in Replace. Now I was thinking I would only do one so I could judge the time and effort. In older versions of Word it was quick and easy. I clicked the button and all hell broke loose. Well not quite that bad. It converted every, I into HE not he. And left out the space after HE. My shoulders drooped.

I didn’t think I could reverse the damage without perhaps losing the entire manuscript. Instead, and don’t laugh, I am now going through the entire document, all 124 pages currently, and fixing the HE mess.

Once finished, I will be writing in third person past tense so what I post from now will be that way. Ugh.