How much time I have spent on editing this draft according to Properties on Microsoft Word.
Only 35 days ago I committed the deadline of 5 October to have this latest draft complete. There were some (many) moments along those 35 days that I doubted my ability to meet it. It’s been great having this commitment though as it has driven me to the (near) end.
After a two days slogging at the editing, my mind has started to wander. One of the difficulties of being left home alone to edit over half of my manuscript for a number of days is the distractions.
I’ve started thinking about all the things I could do in the house: what needs to be cleaned out, reordered, tidied. Maybe I need to sharpen my pencils, maybe all of them in the entire house. What things I could send to the op shop. Is it time to take the dog for another walk? Or am I hungry? Maybe the toilet needs a good scrub – okay, I’ve gone too far.
Photo credits to catherine on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/17305559@N00/)
They’ve all left. Hubby, Mr 14-year-old, and Mr 12-year-old have just driven off for three nights. Three whole nights. Mr 16-year-old is sunning himself in some remarkable national park with family friends in Western Australia (so jealous of him…). And I have the house to myself. For the first time in 16 years. Yep. Ridiculous I know.
Looking at this gorgeous tree it’s hard to believe editing your own manuscript could be hard.
I’m lying on our trampoline, just woken from a snooze and early spring sun is shining. My gum tree is full of birds feeding on blossom and bugs.
What could be so tough?
Truth is that I’m exhausted. Ten days into my ‘chapter a day’ and I’m tired.
I’ve started Draft 4. This probably means nothing to most people, but to other aspiring and published authors, you know where I am.
On Sunday I sat down to write the third last chapter of my third draft only to find I had in fact finished. The end surprised me – not the content, but the fact that I had already arrived when I had been thinking that there needed to be more.
Once I’d (well my story) climaxed it did seem stupid (flat) to drag it out for the sake of a few chapters, especially when I could cover it in the chapter I wrote on Sunday morning.
“If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.” Malcom X
Criticism is hard. I don’t know anyone who gets excited about criticism. But it’s what we do with the criticism that can make all the difference.
One of the things that I’ve learnt so far in my two and half years in a professional writing and editing course is that criticism comes thick and fast. Each time I workshop a piece – when I make myself ridiculously vulnerable – I open myself up to 20 odd different views on what worked, and what didn’t. Each time I get too cocky that I’ve ‘got it’, I’m brought back down to reality – there can always be more done to my work.
It’s been a chaotic year to say the least, and having some deadlines is helpful in providing distractions.
These last few weeks I have been back at uni (RMIT) and work (comms work at a local high school). Not surprisingly, life has rushed on at great speeds without waiting for me to catch up with it. There are things that were screaming at me for attention. So that is what I have given them.
The Return by Silvia Kwon
One of the great joys of doing the RMIT Professional Writing and Editing Associate Degree program is the connections made. As a part of on of the Developing a Writing Project course, we have masterclasses with published graduates of the program. They are student-run panels with the author and graduate talking about their process, book and anything else on writing.
In my pursuit of story knowledge, I found this cool graphic. It explores Kurt Vonnegut’s thesis of the story shape, and how the character’s ups and downs reveal the shape.
Read more about this over here
