Because, um, yeah, I do still write.
Every now and then.
I am currently editing NIGHTCRAFT MOTHER in preparation for sending it out to market. It’s been through…oh, you don’t even want to hear its whole history again. Recently, it’s been through the Zombie Club (my most excellent critique group), and before that, Jay read it.
What I have before me now is a very minimally marked-up manuscript and a page of handwritten notes, based on the verbal feedback from the Zombies and discussions with Jay.
I’m afraid that, based on the cleanliness of the manuscript, I rather underestimated the amount of work to be done here. The markups there are things like Red Shoes’ fetish against using “like” when “as though” was meant, and some hysteria she has against commas, and the like (or, the as though…um…).
The handwritten notes, however–well, they’re deceptively simple. They’re things like “Callie should discover this herself.” “Callie initiates this.” “This should be a problem, not a tension release.” Which…well, as I’m getting into it, I’m finding that these things are requiring a line-by-line rewrite of the scenes in question.
Which is a good thing. The scenes are getting better, stronger. The MC is taking action, not reacting; the trouble and woe and drama is steadily increasing, not always being sidetracked.
But, oh man. Anyway–this is all to say, I’m only three chapters into this thing (of 20). And I need to be done by the end of the month. Heh. So, yes, I will stop blogging and get editing!
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But first, in news of the personal: my toes are so very much better that I am sort of astonished at how much pain, and for how very very long, could be involved in such an apparently nonserious injury. Because, wow. Yesterday, they literally throbbed for hours–all through my flight home and the afternoon–then dully ached all evening. I couldn’t walk normally. The President of Glyptotronics and Sweet Alabama Diva came for dinner, and I sent them to the store and made them cook and clean up. (Well, I might have done that anyway…but truly, I was too sore to stand, to walk.) I considered taking some of my copious leftover Vicodins to sleep, but gave it a try without drugs.
I slept like a rock; went for an hour-long hill-climbing walk this morning; and am considering yoga tomorrow. The cut stung in the shower, and the toes are sore if I touch them, but there is no swelling, no throbbing, no pain otherwise.
Weird. I mean, yay, but weird.
Anyway–on to editing!