Totally off topic, but I recently purchased the first two seasons of King of the Hill and Dale mentioned ‘Hard Copy.’ Do you remember that show? I’d totally forgotten about it. Crazy.
But, what’s even crazier is what became apparent to me in black and white (and green). Black and white being ink & paper, obviously. Green is thrown in the mix because my black printer cartridge is empy and apparently green is the only color I can use to print. I’m not about to spend $35 (or whatever outrageous price those dang cartridges are) until I absolutely have to.
OK — on to what I learned. Exhibit A ————> 
Well, I don’t have an Exhibit B, but this is more than enough!!
It’s been forever since I’ve printed a hard copy and done the edits from there. I need to send a ten page submission for a workshop I’m joining in a couple weeks, so I decided to print out a chapter and edit it on paper as the computer screen is killing my eyes…
It’s amazing how many edits I make. Normally I just do them on the computer, so I don’t get to see how much i’m changing. But this is just one page and I’m not even finished with it.
Maybe y’all do this all the time, but I don’t and I’m practically in shock.
Granted, I haven’t visited this particular chapter in months, so I’m not surprised at the edits—I’m just surprised at the amount of edits. And like I said, I’m not even done with the first page. Mostly, but not quite.
Nine more pages to go.
Craziness!!!
Maybe my man is right—the world really is black and white….
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obvious solution! July 11, 2009
Tags: derailment, eden tyler, editing, floggingthequill.com, ms word, ray rhamey, revising, the abandoned edge of avalon, word comments, writing, writing solutions
Ever since I changed my book to what I was told it should be like, I’ve been having problems. I chunked five chapters and totally redid the beginning only to realize that having so much action only led to less tension. Everything happened and was answered right away. Well, not everything—of course there’s more to the book, but…
Anyway, I put four of the five chapters back in and rewrote the beginning. I wrote it how it was originally. It’s better now because I’ve had ridiculous amounts of revising practice, but it took a few months to get it back to where I feel the story is how it should be.
The problem is that I was thrown off track. Big time. And I’m pretty much back, but the wheels aren’t sliding into the rails exactly right. (or however trains work…idk)
I have had to leave where I’d stopped writing before the crazy revision—about chapter 14 or so—and jump ahead to write later chapters. Those were the only ones that were working themselves out in my head. I was struggling with ch14…it’s still only half done. But I have 4 or 5 later chapters completely finished. One towards the middle, and the rest fit in between the middle and the end somewhere.
I guess it’s perfectly fine to write this way, but I was doing so well writing sequentially and then…Nothing. Nada. No words came out. And if they did, they were all wrong.
Of course I have an idea of what I want to do with the chapter. I know what needs to happen, I just don’t know how to do it.
Then here comes Ray Rhamey, giving me the answer that’s been right in front of my face. Duh, Eden!
Comments. Yes, Word Comments. All I have to do is highlight the last bit of text and add some notes to the side to briefly outline what will happen in that chapter and subsequent ones.
Now, I’m not an outline type of gal, so the really obvious answer won’t work for me. Not at all.
But comments… These will work.
See, if I write down something, then it’s out of my head and I can move on. I’m that way with anything. I’m actually that way with speaking, as well. If something’s on my mind, I just have to get it out and then it’s done and over with. Resolved.
So, if I write down the bones of the chapters that have been in my head for months, it will trick my mind into thinking I’ve written the chapters. Part of the trick is that these ideas and such need to be in the document. Which is why outlines don’t work for me.
Once I’ve made notes in a few comments, I can move on. I know I’m capable of writing later chapters, as I’ve already done so.
Once I’m back in my rhythm, I can go back and fill in the details and really write the action, dialogue, and such.
Yay for MS Word and Ray Rhamey.
Read what gave me hope!
And read other articles of his, as he has great insights into the editing/revising process. Heck, even the basic, beginning writing process. I’ve bookmarked many of his individual pages, on top of bookmarking the main page for daily updates.
This will be the third time I’ve linked to his article in this one of mine, so go check it out!