It doesn't help that I've been reading, writing, editing and rereading, rewriting and re-editing for two weeks. And I've been on a Lisa Gardner reading marathon (I read for 30 minutes before bed), so I go from reading her mysteries to writing mine. Big envious sigh.
I finished one full run through and several partials of particular chapters, but now I'm doing what I always do with my fiction and that's reading it aloud. Luckily I have a husband who's patient enough to watch an oak tree grow. He shuts off the television and lets me read. Monday I read 34 pages. Tuesday 107 pages. Wednesday, today, I still have time to knock out another 50-100 pages, but I also have my writing group at 6:30 when I need to read aloud a chapter for critique. Yes, I'm hoarse.
The more I read, however, the more I see - and the more frustrates me. I notice I've become a fan of the following words: threat, (33 times), case, (136), drama (14), breath (58), tremble (8), flinch (8), and wait for it . . . look (172 times). I'm forever circling LOOK on others' stories in my critique groups. (Red face.) Control F, here I come. On top of that, I'm almost fanatical about not overusing HAD. My editor inserted it all over the place after I'd deleted as many as I could. Apparently I overdid the HAD exorcism to the point of altering flow.
A few of the suggested edits bothered me, but mostly her notes for change were sorely needed. Yes, I may have overdone the cursing in spots and the analogies might exceeded the norm. Hey, I'm Southern. It's what we do. I
So if I'm not on Twitter as much, or commenting enough on Facebook, bear with me. Imagine me in my recliner, ice water on my side table, pen in hand, reading . . . reading . . . reading.
As a good writing friend of mine said just today when I apologized for being preoccupied: "this is what you've been wanting, the deadline turmoil and rush of publication. ;) "
Yep, I got that now - got it in spades! And actually, it's really cool.
7 comments:
Paint me green and call me envious.
A dash of bourbon or a throat lozenge should ease your hoarseness. Read on, and congratulations on coming so far on your book.
Ah, bourbon - good idea. Of course, not sure I'd be catching too many errors by the time I got to the 100th page of the day.
I have a crit partner who is obsessed with "was." You could search her 400K novel and never find the word used once. I think she takes it too far, but I have to admit that her obsession has caused me to look for better options more often. I'd say I've probably cut half of the "was" language I used to use. Just had to share that, after your comments about "had." ;)
Call it a good day's work when you get done!
Ah, the joys of revision!
I not only read my work aloud, I act it out, complete with different voices for different characters. Really helps me identify issues of weak or ineffective dialogue, not to mention opportunities to enhance characterization because I now know the characters better.
Besides, it's fun.
yep... really cool and strangely addictive!
Sounds like an enormous amount of work.
I don't know how you find the time.
Hard work no doubt.
Best of luck.
May you maintain your sanity.
=]
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