the slog

Oh, I wish I had something more exciting to report.

What percentage of a plan do you have? I dunno. 12 percent.
Just about. Courtesy imoviequotes.com/

I’m getting the hang of this whole rewriting/editing thing. Between Heather Rose Jones‘ comment and some direction from Helping Writers Become Authors I’m now flailing with a plan: check POV and punctuation; kill “that”s and “there is/was”s, etc. Measurable goals feel like progress, but at what cost?

I’ve become a bit of a hermit writing-wise. Nothing feels ready to put before my critique group, and I declined a public reading because I didn’t want to derail the editing process to prepare one 15 minute section. I’m probably cheating myself of learning opportunities but I’ve not yet figured out the balance for this phase.

So, back into the trenches. Imagine me banging my head against the keyboard between adverb search and destroy missions.

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Allison Thurman

Raised on a diet of Star Wars, Monty Python, and In Search Of, Allison Thurman has always made stuff, lately out of words. She lives in a galaxy far, far away (well, the DC metro area) with too many books and not enough swords.

2 thoughts on “the slog”

  1. If it’s any help, pretty much every “checklist” item you’re reviewing for this time will likely be part of your writing arsenal next time. I don’t remember how many editing passes I made for Daughter of Mystery. The backup files go up to “rev. 7”, which only counts the major points at which I did an accept-changes. (But that includes the beta and editorial feedback revisions. So probably more like 4 revisions before it went to betas.)

  2. I am starting to find this is the case. I’m rewriting large sections with all that I’ve learned in mind, so much so that it’s becoming instinctual. Stuff just doesn’t look “right”, and now I know *why*. With each successive book/story/work, do you find that you don’t have to edit and rewrite as much?

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