Ooooh, that really sounds bad, doesn't it? Still, it caught your attention and you clicked on over. My day is now complete. Seriously, I considered calling today Revision in Process Wednesday until I realized the abbreviated form was . . . RIP. Rest in Peace Wednesday? Oh, no, has my revision died and nobody told me? If so, what in the heck was I working on last night . . . a ghost manuscript???
Yes, a bit of snarkity-snark first thing in the morning. Perhaps it's the absolutely gorgeous, non-humid weather that has settled over the South for the past week or so. I'm talking 60 degrees in the morning with dew on the ground. That (snicker) just (snicker) does not happen in July. Then again, as capricious as Mother Nature is, the heat wave is looming around the corner. She just wanted to lull us into a false sense of non-humidity before walloping us over the head with both stifling heat and humidity for the next two months. Ah, the joys of Southern living . . .NOT!
I am making progress on the revision stage. I'm up to Chapter Twenty (out of Twenty-Four) solely with the word that! Then, there are the words like, just, some, had, was and the list continues. At this rate, a very hot place will freeze over before I finish the revisions. Well, at least I'll have a pitcher of margaritas with me!
I've eliminated close to 2,000 words so far. Woo-hoo! No, I didn't have that (there is a time and place for this word, btw) many thats in my manuscript. I've also deleted sentences here and there, created contractions, and eliminated the lyrics as I've come across them - except for the one section where the lyrics must remain. They are too important to the story, and I'll get on my knees and beg the artist for permission to use them if I must!
I have a huge chunk of words still to go. I'm confident I'll succeed.
My question for the day: Why, oh, why, does Blogger screw with my formatting when I add a picture? Have I offended them in some way? Is it just Blogger's way of screwing with my mind? Like the world doesn't screw with it enough? Where, oh, where, have my spaces between paragraphs gone dear Blogger? Does anyone else have this problem? Geesh!
S
7 comments:
One thing I did to take out the overused words in my ms. was to use MS Word to replace them. For example, I had tons of "was". I replaced every "was" with a "was" that was bold, underlined, italics, and printed in red ink. I did this with all my overused words, just switching to different colors. Then I printed them all--the end result was some pretty colorful pages--but it helped my eye to go right to the problems. I shot for goals, such as no more than five colored words on a page--and it became a lot easier to sort through on a word level.
(PS: If you're having trouble with formatting in Blogger, switch over the the html mode on the create posts page. You have to sift through the code, but it's not too difficult, and usually the problem is from there.)
I always have that problem with blogger. I used to do a crafting blog with tons of pictures, and it took fifty times as long to fix the formatting.
Oh well.
You're flying with the revisions! Keep it up, Scott!
Yes, all your problems be mine, too, even the revision. So here's wishing us peace in Wednesday. And woo-hoo on shrinking word count!
Blogger drives me crazy w/ the picture issues!
Great progress on your revisions! ;) That is the craziest part, and really does take forever. It will be completely worth it, though!
Beth - I never thought of doing the editing (omg, I want to use the word 'that' so bad right now) by bolding/italics/color the overused words. Whew! I may have to try using THAT technique so that I can do other editing at the same time. Thanks.
Elana - there's a reason I rarely use pictures.
Tricia - I just keep telling myself that revising is part of the path to publication. Now if only an agent would pick me up - well, not literally. : )
Rebecca - thanks. Eliminating and/or changing a single word throughout the entire document is definitely slow going. I think I'm going to try Beth's suggestion so I can kill the two proverbial birds with one stone.
S
Awesome job on the revisions, Scott! I'm just barely starting some of my own. It's a bit daunting. Good luck with finishing yours, drink lots of margaritas, and I love the whole RIP thing. :D
I have found if I 'save' the post first, it holds the paragraph spacing. So, I write the post, save it and then go back into edit and publish it.
Wierd, I know, but it's the only way I've found to make blogger keep my spacing!
And, I'm glad Margarita Nights is not RIP-ing!
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