Formatting My Manuscript

I feel like I need to crap or get off the pot with this book. I know, that's not a very sophisticated thing to say, but I feel like I've just been talking for months on end about this book I wrote and how I'm a writer and how one of these days I want to write full time, yet I haven't done anything to make any of that happen. It feels like I've been done with the book for a long time, though the truth is I only completed the first draft about eight weeks ago. It seems like I've been done with it for a long time because I thought I was done with it in August. I didn't know I was going to have to craft a new ending.

Based on all the research I've done, editors and agents are super picky about how you submit a manuscript. Everything has to be perfect so you appear to know what you are doing. Just looking nice won't cut it. There are specific guidelines that have to be followed so it is easy to read, but also so that you look like you are serious enough about writing to have investigated the rules.

To help me with this, I purchased Chuck Sambuchino's Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript, 3rd Edition. It tells specifically where to put word count, title, name and address, how many times to space after typing the chapter titles, where (and where not) to put page numbers, and the thorn in my side--headers! I just got done spending about 2 1/2 hours putting headers on 5 pages of my manuscript. It has actually taken me days to figure out how to put a different header on each page. Word 2007 automatically puts the same header on every page. That is not going to work according to Sambuchino who says my book (a memoir which should be formatted as fiction even though it is actually nonfiction because memoirs read like novels) should have headers something like this:

First page: Title page with no header or page number
Second page: James/LETTERS I'LL NEVER SEND/Contents
Third page: James/LETTERS I'LL NEVER SEND/Dedication
Fourth page: James/LETTERS I'LL NEVER SEND/Epigraph
Fifth and all subsequent pages: Page #s - James/LETTERS I'LL NEVER SEND

I like to never figured all that out! Thankfully, I found a website (Yahoo Answers) that explained it:

"Wherever in the document you need a new Header or a new Footer insert a section break. In Word 2007, inserting a section break is located in the Page Layout tab. (You'd think it would be in the Insert tab, but it isn't...go figure.) So...
1) Left-click on Page Layout.
2) Left-click on Breaks in the group Page Setup and select "Section Break...Next Page"
3) In the new section, double left-click in the header to edit it.
NOTICE that the Ribbon has automatically switched to "Design"
4) In the group labeled "Navigation" left-click on "Link to Previous" to undo the link.
5) Edit the section header to your liking.
Done."

Now, even after reading this, I still had trouble. I had the headers for pages 1, 3, and 4 correct, but page 2 kept changing to what page 4 said. I wanted to pull my hair out! Luckily, I have my manuscript saved in a few different places on my computer and flash drive, so I went to a copy that I hadn't tried to insert headers in yet and started all over. Finally, I got it all straightened out.

Monday I get to conference with a really, really, really smart lady (yeah, I know she's reading this) who has read my book. Hopefully she will help me see what I can do better. Then, I'm thinking about submitting the entire manuscript to Eaton Literary Agency. They don't want query letters. They want entire manuscript submissions. That sounds pretty good to me. Let's cut to the chase and read the book rather than seeing if I can tempt them to read it with a one page letter that tells the story in one paragraph. Plus, if they accept my manuscript, it will be entered into a $3,000 Literary Awards Program, and they will work with me to improve my manuscript.