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Other eyes
Sep. 12th, 2010 10:56 pmYesterday, I gave ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adfamiliares the first chapter of The Slow Palace (3rd draft) to read. Over Veggie Planet pizza tonight, she gave me her critiques. Somehow, she overlooked the fact that the opening is clenched and florid, and that the scene with the wife is deathly slow and clumsy, and all the other inoperable flaws any sensible reader would see. She had a couple of very helpful suggestions — one, that twenty-five-cent words should be saved for things I actually want to draw attention to, and two, an inconsistency in iconography — but otherwise she claimed she liked it. Her expectations and understandings are what I want my reader to expect and understand at this stage (though a few things led her astray, which is also useful information). Perhaps letting people read my work isn't such a bad idea after all. Carefully selected people.
This whole editing process has been going slower than expected. Summer heat makes my 3rd-floor office unpleasant to work in, and I spent a few weeks paralyzed by prose insecurity and difficulty adapting to this new phase of the project. But I'm starting to get a handle on it. I thought I could just make changes to the file in situ, without the print-out-and-retype method I used for the second draft, but retyping on a blank page seems to be essential for overcoming my reluctance to make major changes. Now it goes like this: I print out a chapter of draft 2, read it over fueled by coffee, wince a lot, make edits in pencil, then bring it home and retype it into the 3rd draft file, incorporating and adding changes as I go. Once a chapter is done, I print it out and hand it off toadfamiliares, who marks it up and makes suggestions, which I incorporate (or not) into the 3rd draft file. (I got a new laser printer to make all this printing faster and less fussy.)
Also, it turns out that Lake Champlain Chocolates has new cocoa flavors: chai and mint. My writing-fuel is replenished and rejuvenated. Finishing chapter 2 tonight, or getting close. Then, on to attack the bear that is chapter 3.
adfamiliares the first chapter of The Slow Palace (3rd draft) to read. Over Veggie Planet pizza tonight, she gave me her critiques. Somehow, she overlooked the fact that the opening is clenched and florid, and that the scene with the wife is deathly slow and clumsy, and all the other inoperable flaws any sensible reader would see. She had a couple of very helpful suggestions — one, that twenty-five-cent words should be saved for things I actually want to draw attention to, and two, an inconsistency in iconography — but otherwise she claimed she liked it. Her expectations and understandings are what I want my reader to expect and understand at this stage (though a few things led her astray, which is also useful information). Perhaps letting people read my work isn't such a bad idea after all. Carefully selected people.This whole editing process has been going slower than expected. Summer heat makes my 3rd-floor office unpleasant to work in, and I spent a few weeks paralyzed by prose insecurity and difficulty adapting to this new phase of the project. But I'm starting to get a handle on it. I thought I could just make changes to the file in situ, without the print-out-and-retype method I used for the second draft, but retyping on a blank page seems to be essential for overcoming my reluctance to make major changes. Now it goes like this: I print out a chapter of draft 2, read it over fueled by coffee, wince a lot, make edits in pencil, then bring it home and retype it into the 3rd draft file, incorporating and adding changes as I go. Once a chapter is done, I print it out and hand it off to
adfamiliares, who marks it up and makes suggestions, which I incorporate (or not) into the 3rd draft file. (I got a new laser printer to make all this printing faster and less fussy.)Also, it turns out that Lake Champlain Chocolates has new cocoa flavors: chai and mint. My writing-fuel is replenished and rejuvenated. Finishing chapter 2 tonight, or getting close. Then, on to attack the bear that is chapter 3.
