On the road to publishing EYES RIGHT...

We're several steps closer.

EYES RIGHT now has an ISBN and "cloth" information for the cover.

And yesterday, I received the copyedited manuscript. Thankfully, blissfully, the copyedits are light -- with one exception. The copyeditor has lowercased "Marine" to "marine."

Now, if you're one of my Facebook friends, you've already read the lengthy list of snarky comments regarding this, maybe even posted one or two. But to be fair to the copyeditor, the lowercase of Marine to marine is common in publishing, especially since publishers bow to Chicago style.

But what about bowing to hundreds of years of tradition? The word Marine is, technically, uppercased because the word is part of the actual title of "Marine Corps." At least, that's the story they're still telling recruits in boot camp.

For example, the word, soldier, is generic; therefore, soldier is not capitalized even when referring to someone within the U.S. Army, and neither is sailor. Coast Guardsman is capitalized, though.

Just the other day, I stumbled across a news story that stated the U.S. Army was now demanding that all references to soldier be capitalized. In fact, someone pretty high up there in the Army had sent the "order" to Webster for new inclusion in forthcoming dictionaries and to the Associated Press, which determines style usage for hundreds of newspapers. According to the article, the Army has suddenly had enough of what it considers favoritism toward Marines.

Was this, perhaps, also in response to the recent New York Times in-house style change? For more than a hundred years, the New York Times had been reporting Marines as marines. And then a sudden style shift to "Marines." Why? I don't know. Maybe someone on the Times staff, a former Marine, made a persuasive argument for bowing to hundreds of years of tradition?

So, what do I do about the hundred or so changes of Marine to marine within my own manuscript? I'm going to plead, shamelessly. I'll find her Achilles' heel -- chocolate, wine, puppies, Peeps -- and I'll bribe her with a lifetime supply.

Everyone has a price, and I'm willing to pay, BIG, not to offend my fellow Marines.