Last night was the first television-free weeknight in recent memory, and I got a decent amount of work done. My first editing pass on the novel in progress was done at the computer, and it was a process of unwriting—getting rid of the rambling blather that often comes out on the first pass. Sentences that contain far too many words for their own good. Sentences that don’t have any reason to live. Repetition and duplication. I cut over 2000 words out of the draft on that pass.
Now, working with the hardcopy and a black pen (never red!), I am adding back in, but this time it is detail that is going in and not just words. Now that I know a lot more about the story and the characters, I’m daubing in the kind of highlights that an artist might do with a painting. Character background. Foreshadowing, things like that. I got through the first four chapters (thirty MS pages) last night, and keyed in the changes to the manuscript this morning.
Tonight’s pretty much of a write off work-wise given that it’s LOST finale night, though I might be able to squeeze some work in before it starts. It’d be nice to get a couple of more chapters inked up.
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