Tag: editing

So, Progress.

My editing slowed down in book 2 (Entangled LEREs) of the Incomplete States series. I blame it on three things.

  1. Life distractions
  2. A poorly written chapter
  3. Mischievous muses
  4. Misophonia

Life distractions happen. Part of it this week was enduring my normal descent into the dark troughs of my being. It’s a regular thing. I scowl, swear, and endure it, hoping to emerge as a perkier and happier person on the other end (which I do) while trying to reduce the dark side’s impact (which I barely manage to do) and reduce the time I’m affected (which I don’t do). I shrug. It’s over until the next episode.

The poorly written chapter is another matter. The first time I read the chapter, “A Dark and Stormy Night”, I finished confused about what I’d read. I immediately suspected that it’s probably not good when the author doesn’t understand what they wrote. A second reading was required, and then a third to drill down into why I was confused and what I can do about it. Two days were then spent on fixing it before I continued.

During that period, I reckoned that the changes were not significant but that once I’m done editing the four books, I’ll have a complete set of the first draft. Then I’ll edit and revise it again.

I had resigned myself to no writing like crazy while I’m editing the series. The muses, though, have become restless and bored. That makes them mischievous. Out of this, they’ve begun tossing out novel suggestions. They often use, “Wouldn’t it be fun to write,” as their opening prelude.

Yes, I enjoy hearing their ideas. It’s stimulating and exciting, which makes it harder for me to rein the muses in and gently tell them, “I’ll keep that in mind.” See, the muses always want me to drop everything else and start pursuing their idea right now. I don’t want to discourage them, but I need to be disciplined and finish this series and publish it first. This is growth and maturity for me, because just two years ago, I would have let the muses ride me like a horse and answer their spurs.

Misophonia (in my terms, based on my limited knowledge) is a strong emotional reaction to sounds. I have such a reaction to people smacking their lips while eating, or walking around humming and singing to themselves in pubic places like coffee shops. I’ve always blamed Mom for this behavior in me because I thought I’d learned my reactions from her. Mom was always snapping at us about the way we ate or chewed our gum, or for humming, turning pages loud, or making clicking noises.

As I do with things that bother me, I sought information and stumbled across misophonia. That linked page states, “The latest research suggests it is sensory processing issue within the brain. Misophonia elicits immediate negative physiological responses to certain sounds that most people don’t seem to notice. This sensitivity can have an adverse effect on a person’s life causing problems with activities of daily living.”

Well, shucks, that’s exactly what I endured this week. Twice, a particular woman came in, sat down at the table next to me, and hummed and sang to herself. Except for when she spoke, she hummed, even when others spoke to her. She hummed whether she was sitting, standing, or walking.

It drove me nuts. I recognized that it’s not her being inconsiderate, and that murdering her or growling at her wouldn’t help anything. As I processed her sounds, I realized this could be a coping mechanism. It could be subconscious.

It still annoyed me. I struggled to cope. I looked for somewhere else to sit (but also resented that I would need to move because of her). 

So, I didn’t cope well, and it affected my editing. She’s not here today. I’ll shrug it off while researching how to cope.

Now, I’m ravenous for lunch and I’m done writing like crazy editing like crazy, for at least one more day.

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I Find

The first two parts of Entangled States, ten chapters, are like reaching a coast. The direction doesn’t matter. You hit the stretch where the land and sea meet. It’s turbulent, with crashing waves and hissing, seething waters. Taking it all must be done in pieces. There is the sea and the land, and there’s also the sky. Each exercises its own elements, colors, and behaviors. Once you pass this borderland, you’re released from the complications inherent to progressing from sea to land and freer to relax and take more in.

Now into part three of the book, it settles down again. I remember writing all of this, and recall thinking about the parts, and the placement of these chapters and scenes, and how they’ll interact. At that point, it was like being too close to a pointillism piece of art. Distance is needed for the colors to blend and become something more than blobs.

Wild, to think, while writing it, I saw these blobs and strokes, and applied them, and now I need to step back to comprehend the whole. I was realizing the whole on one level while I already saw and comprehended it on another level. Then, not so wild, as I write to help clarify and understand what I think.

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Nerves

I’m nervous as I’m editing this second book in the Incomplete States series. The series’ first book, Four On Kyrios, was straightforward for the most part. This book, Entangled LEREs, is well-named, with entangled stories and characters. It reminds me of Slaughterhouse Five meets The Sound and the Fury, Cloud Atlas, and Lincoln in the Bardo. Editing becomes intense for me. I imagine readers asking themselves and the book, “What’s going on? I don’t understand.” Makes me want to revise it to make it clearer and more linear.

The muses push back against that impulse and insist that I don’t change anything. And there it goes, I’m cringing and sweating, thinking, what am I doing? “Trust us,” the muses urge. In response, I hold my head and rub my forehead and temples, and think, pitting desire to change things against the muses’ directives.

The muses remind me, “You’re in the middle of the series. Don’t make any major changes until you’ve gone through all four books.” Right, because the mud settles later, and it all becomes clearer. These are mysteries in mysteries, all part of the concept and story. Yes, I remember writing these chapters and battling the muses about it back then.

Man, it makes me nervous, though. My jaw hurts from gritting my teeth. Should a writer have such a love/hate relationship with their muses and the novel in progress? I remind myself that I was going all in, that, yes, I knew when I was writing it that it would be way out there. I remember those battles with myself from back then. I hope readers can get through it and find the effort rewarding. Even as I nurture that hope, I remind myself, I write for myself. I’m my only guaranteed audience.

I think it’s time to call it a day.

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Going On

Have you ever seen a movie or read a book about a prisoner who uses a spoon or other small implement to chip away their rock or cement prison and eventually escape? I was thinking about that the other day as I was editing Entangled LEREs and realized, that’s not how it feels editing the second book in the Incomplete States series.

It also doesn’t feel like I’m struggling to move the needle. Nor does it feel like I’m climbing a mountain or swimming an ocean.

It feels pretty damn good.

I miss writing like crazy each day, truly. I resent, too, that it’ll take sooooo looong before these novels will be published. By ‘sooooo looong’, I mean like months or more. Yes, I’m indulging in some hyperbole to expose my natural impatience.

I’m not good at this persistent, slow stuff. I eat fast, drive fast, think fast, and talk fast. I like doing things fast. I like being intense and immersed.

But, I’m enjoying this leisurely editing and revising. I’m reading other books as I edit, novels that are best sellers or prize winners, prizes like the Man Booker, Peabody, and Pulitzer, or books by authors who won a Nobel Prize for Literature. I used to avoid reading such lofty others while I’m writing or editing. Correcting myself, I used to avoid reading most published literature while I was reading and writing because I often felt that my writing could never achieve such heights, and it depressed and demoralized me.

I’m more confident about it now. While I still enjoy and admire the aforementioned sort of books, I’m not cringing from my efforts when I go back and forth between the two. More often, when I find something special by someone else that I’m reading, I pause to understand the passage’s impact on me and explore what the author did and how they did it, hoping that I can learn how to do it.

The process has helped. I can see improvement in my writing. I sometimes find beauty or insights in my work that startles me.

Like many writers, I’ve found that writing is a progression. With a little talent and heavy loads of persistence and determination, we can improve what we’re revealing and how it’s revealed as we tell the stories that flow through us. This progression shines in the editing process. Further away from the fiery crucible of creativity where the flow is so intense, I can apply the lessons that I perceive. I’m more mindful. While I’m doing this, my appreciation for the diverse processes of writing/creativity and writing/editing/revising increases. As with many facets of our existence, it’s a spectrum.

Of course, on the obverse of this coin, when I read portions of my earlier published works, I cringe. There’s a plan afoot to edit and revise some of that stuff stirring in my head. What’s that? Don’t look back? You might have a point.

Time to resume editing like crazy.

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“Four On Kyrios”

I’m feeling breathless, worried, and giddy today. You probably suspect that it’s the smoky air because I’ve been complaining about the wildfire smoke so often in July and August. Well, you’d be wrong, suckah. We have good air today.

I’m breathless and giddy because I completed the first draft of Four On Kyrios today. The novel has officially made the transition from beta to first draft. At the same time, I received feedback from two friends who volunteered to read the beta version as a second pair of eyes. They’d finished reading the manuscript and offered their comments. Both were enthusiastic and are ready to read the next book in the series. That pleases me, but I’m worried because, as a writer, I’m unique among writers, and worry whether others who read what I wrote will describe it as gilded garbage.

That was decent sarcasm, wasn’t it?

Four On Kyrios is the first book of the Incomplete States series. It didn’t take me long to read, edit, and revise it. I attribute that speed to several points.

One, it was the third book in the series to be written. That advantage means that a great deal of thinking about the concept, plot, background, and setting was already completed.

Two, I edit and revise as I write. My organic writing process drives this pattern. Writing what’s already written helps me connect with the muses and continue discovering and telling the story. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I fix grammar, punctuation, pacing, and continuity issues when they’re discovered. (Are you surprised?)

Three, Four On Kyrios is the smallest of the four novels in the Incomplete States series. MS Word clocks it at ninety thousand words and three hundred seventy-five pages.

Four, of the four novels, it has the simplest plot and the fewest characters. Those factors keep it easy to read and edit.

As this is the first novel in a series of four, it’ll stay in first draft status while I read, edit, and revise the others.  The four books were written to tell one larger tale, so they’re interconnected. I came out of the editing and revising process with one page of notes. Some are reminders, a few are continuity questions, and the rest were issues. All of the issues except two were resolved. They’ll remain open until I complete the other three books.

Most of the changes in the novel were more about expanding some scenes to slow down and let the characters breathe. I’ve been reading a lot since I finished the beta draft of the four books. Reading others’ published novels impact my ‘sense’ of the book. To me, this is the instinct we develop as writers because we read. It’s a feel for what seems right and correct about something we’re reading. It’s about flow and story-telling.

Just for the record, I’ve read Lincoln in the Bardo, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Godless, The Midnight Line, Time’s Eye, and Diary in the past few weeks after finishing the first three books of the Dire Earth Cycle. I’m now reading The Pagan Lord and The Order of Time and searching for The Triggerman’s Dance. I think La Rose might be up next on my reading, though. The Order of Time is a fascinating book about time, physics, and quantum mechanics by Carlos Rovelli. I don’t agree with all of his points, but it’s fun thinking about them.

Now, on to the next novel in the Incomplete States series, Entangled LEREs. I’ll begin editing and revising it tomorrow. Right now, though, my stomach is posting orders for something to eat.

I think I shall comply.

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Beta to First Draft

I miss writing like crazy every day. I’m editing and revising instead, trying to turn the beta iteration of the first novel in my Incomplete States series into the first draft. My imagination is chaffing. It doesn’t like being shut down.

To say ‘It’s going well’ is so sloppy to the thinking, writing, and creative process that I eschew using it. What those three words mean is that I haven’t encountered any “OMG WHAT IS THIS CRAP?” moments. I’m enjoying reading the novel. Not many changes have been required, although there are some notes on potential changes to make later, depending on what happens in the next three books in the series. They’re waiting their turn.

Writing like crazy is the fun, addictive part. That’s what I like about writing, spin up the imagination and release it on hyperdrive. Every day, my muses and writing addiction attempt to trick me with the “Let’s write something else today” game. But I know me. This part is necessary. I was thinking last night, I have ten other unpublished novels that I wrote and completed as a first draft that I never did any more with because I prefer the writing-like-crazy excitement over the “Let’s edit and revise this mother into something presentable” stage where I now dwell.

So, yeah, this must be done. And yeah, I remind myself, I need to attend the business end of advertising and so on for the other novels published because they will not sell themselves.

Covers are done for the four books. Yes, I know, why are the covers done if you don’t have a first draft completed? It’s a carrot thing. Having the covers help me visualize the completed novels as something tangible. And I wanted to have covers, so nah-nah-nah, I made some. Yes, I made them.

Changed the first novel’s title too. Kyrios wasn’t working for me in the completed visualization process so the title became Four on Kyrios. Who knows what it’ll end up being? That title feels right for now but it felt right with the last title, didn’t it?

Time to edit like crazy. Just doesn’t have the same feel to it, does it?

 

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Wandering the Dark

Man, was it dark. At first, I saw and heard very little. When I did hear or see something, I’d type like crazy to capture those impressions. They were the starting position. I thought it was the beginning, but it turned out to be toward the middle.

Hearing people talking and moving, I followed them. Drawing closer to them, I started glimpsing their figures and faces. With greater exposure, I came to understand them. Soon, I could slip into their thinking and understand what they’re doing and their motivations.

But the paths and area remained dark, forcing me to explore. Some paths were easier to follow. Others became dense with forest, slowing me down and forcing me to feel my way. I stumbled over things unseen underfoot, slipped along muddy sections, got stuck, and sometimes fell.

I kept going, though, mapping it all in my mind and typing up details. Sharp turns, switchbacks, parallel paths and hidden ways surprised me. Cliffs and walls were encountered. Following a grade, I climbed to the highest area I found, thinking, from here, I’ll see and know where I’m going. But it looks different from up here. The details aren’t visible from this level. It’s the details that must be known and understood.

Hours of typing become days of typing that developed into weeks, months, and then, years. But at last, I think I fully understand the story problem and solution. I believe I see all the paths and connections. I think I know where everyone went, why they went there, and what happened to them.

Now that I know, I can finish. Finishing, I can begin revising and editing to ensure the story I see at the end, when it’s all been revealed, is the story that I wrote from the beginning.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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