Editopia

Editopia

I’m sort of stuck in Edit Hell on Dawn’s Rise at the moment. Turns out editing is 100x harder than writing. Writing is just process of saying, “this happens, then this happens, then this happens” until you have a first draft. Editing is more like, “does this word work? Does this sentence convey the character’s true feelings? Does this make sense? Will anyone ever read this dreck?” Every single thing is analyzed and considered, rewritten, cut, reordered, and then cut again. It’s like mowing the lawn with toenail clippers and Round Up. Each little unwanted weed must be replaced with a solitary grass stalk, patch by tiny little patch.

I keep getting advice about remove adverbs and adjectives, then I start reading some published works and the guy uses “suddenly, but, also, extremely,” etc all over the place. So are they bad or not? Writing is not like Engineering, there aren’t strict rules to follow that destroy your book if there’s one semicolon out of place. My biggest concern isn’t really the words but all the descriptive crap I have all over the place. It’s not that the descriptions aren’t necessary, they just get in the way of the action. I need to bring the reader along, not throw a bunch of stuff at him. I guess readers are on a “need to know” basis; I only tell them what they need to know when they need it.

Fun Facts For Last Week:

• Running: 22+ miles, 2 days swimming
• Weight Loss: Scale died. It’s either out of juice or it’s embarrassed for me.
• The Immortals: I’m stuck on the current chapter. It’s not “writer’s block,” it’s just that the current chapter sucks and I can’t seem to rescue it.
• Dawn’s Rise: About 30 pages edited, need about 10 more. Also need to work on rewriting the Agent Query for the nth time. I also should look into this “proposal” concept although I think that’s more of a non-fiction tool.
• House Status: Recycled about 3 yards of old clothes. (That would be cubic yards). Going to recycle about ten boxes of books, hopefully we can get $ for these. I rented a truck for a week from today, and we’re going to empty the storage unit for good.
• Mariners: 8-5 start which is great. They’ve been bit by injuries the first couple weeks but I think this should be a good season. Great to see Ken Griffey Jr. again.
• Reading: Finished Heart of Hythea and began Orbit.

BTW that image is clearly facetious. I found it on this very strange site. Now back to Edit Hell.

Update: I didn't win the One Line contest...but I think they wanted more YA/MG type submissions and my writing is definitely for adults.