Sunday, February 12, 2012

One more time

Since Tim was out of it sick all weekend, I actually got a lot of work done. The threat of snow all day kept me inside, so we never got any cookies delivered, but I also got through 100 pages of reading. At least I'm ahead of the game on that front. Today, hopefully, we will get some of these cookies out of the house. Before I eat them all.

This current edit has been encouraging. I'm not finding major things to fix this go-around, just silly things. Things like:

-I typed the word "the" but meant "them"

-Verb tenses don't agree within a sentence.

-I use the same word or phrase twice in a paragraph, when another perfectly lovely word or phrase would make it better, or at least less clunky.

Reading for style and polish is always easier than reading for major plot structure. I don't have to keep stopping to skip backward or forward through the book to fix plot problems, so I can spend most of my time reading straight through and looking for awkward phrasing, misspelled nonsense, and general style. I can take a blah sentence and punch it up to reflect the characters' personalities or emotions more accurately.

A few more days of punching at this MS, and I'm going to turn it over to beta Tim. Then I have to sit on pins and needles while he reads through it. I'd rather write and edit any day than wait to hear what he thinks. At least I know he'll be nice about it.

Last night, I kind of got distracted when I realized Return of the King was on TV. Even with commercial breaks, I couldn't stop watching it. What really bugged me, though, was how they edited it. Ugh. They left out some of my favorite parts! How dare they leave out "The Mouth of Sauron?" That's a major turning point in the story. He comes out and shows the Fellowship Frodo's mithril coat and Sam's barrow sword, and the bad guys think they're taunting Frodo's friends with his supposed death. Pippin reacts, and Gandalf silences him. He knows that they didn't actually have Frodo, since Sauron would have reclaimed his ring by then if they did. Gandalf knows it's a sign that they could still have a chance of victory. How the hell could they cut that scene out? Plus, hello, Mouth of Sauron here! You just want to punch that guy right in his ugly teeth. So that's my big complaint with yesterday. I think I'm going to have to watch the uncut version of LOTR today to soothe myself, and get out my "in your face, Mouth of Sauron" vindictive joy.

Punch me in the face, please!


Okay, say it all together now. I'm a nerd. I know it. I accept it. It's a good thing.

So, on to the summary:

Words: 98,213
Pages: 314
(and those are unlikely to change much at this point)
Edit Read-through Page: 97

I can't really call it an edit anymore. It's more of a read-through. I'm just about ready to get through this now. I've already got an idea how the next book will start, and I'd rather be writing that at this point.

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