Boring process natter is boring.

[leahbobet]

Line edits have developed a rhythm. I go for the easy things first, the low-hanging fruit; the changes I don't mind making or know most definitely that I won't be making. I work through a whole chapter, go back, pick at the other stuff until it frustrates me and I'm out of tea and avoidant and annoyed and magically rediscovering the urge to scrub out my bathtub or reorganize my kitchen cupboards.

Then I go back a day or two later and magically, those hard things are all easy.

I don't know if it's the absence of information overload (less red ink = easier!) or if reading the chapter through again helps set the newer shape of it, and so the bigger changes or thinky bits are easier to fit in when there's a more cohesive whole. But it seems to work. Let it sit and I can finish.

So the shape of my revising evenings now looks like this: do the second or third pass on the last chapter, vacuuming out all the hard things. Take a short break. Do the first pass on the next chapter, until it frustrates me and I'm out of tea and avoidant. Put it the hell away.

I am starting to pick out some of my editor's tendencies (she likes but vs. and and is trying to drive the general pacing faster, kick the whole thing up by 10 mph). I am starting to notice very sharply some of my own (describe everything, little things, big things; start the narration of an incident at the middle or end, and then double back to explain). This has all kind of been impressively educational.

No, I am not finished yet.

---

In another part of the world, here's jimhines on readership, fandom, the Internet, and how they overlap (or don't). I endorse this theory entirely, and there's good stuff in the comments too.

In yet another, this band is good even if their video is terrible. Have some:

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

But! But and and mean different things! They're different relationships. argh!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Sometimes not as different as you'd think. I like sometimes to change a but to an and, just to make the reader think a little more about what I'm saying. Always that way round, though; I think but gets overused, at least in my fiction. Everything is expressed in oppositions. [Spur-of-the-moment example: He was crazy, but we loved him anyway. Which can certainly read He was crazy, and we loved him anyway; it's not the facts that change, only the perspective.]

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Yup -- that's the tendency this narrator has. He's a big fan of and where the meaning is closer to but or so, and it...inflects the way he tells a story in this subtle but important way. He's very non-oppositional. It makes his world quite grey and complex.

So I'm hitting the opposite end: trying to trim some of that and without losing the pervasiveness of the voice.

(Other thing I'm learning about my own tendencies: apparently I am perfectly happy and willing to throw out what the word actually means if it gives the right sound and shape and feel. What does that mean? Not important!)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Heh. I do that too, with meanings as against the sound and feel of a word. Quietly assuming that my reader(s) will feel the same way as I do...

Also, be bold. Stand up against your editor, if they're wanting you to change more than you're comfortable with. Especially if they're missing the subtleties of the voice. It's hard, but it's important...

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's good. It makes me justify my decisions, which makes sure that they're actual decisions and not just lazy habits.