This week editing just clicked for me. It’s always been a struggle for me to edit. Sometimes it feels like I have no idea what I’m doing, and other times I feel like I’m working too mechanically and that I’m taking out the heart of the story. I’ve tried several different methods of editing, including a complete rewrite, using different colors to indicate how done the sentence is, line editing, editing for senses, etc, but none of them have really felt natural.
This week I figured out a way to edit that makes sense for me. It’s very simple: I open up two word docs (one with the prior draft and one new doc) and put them side by side. I copy over one page at a time and edit just that page. It lets me see where the novel was before and what it looks like now, as well as giving me a specific area to work on that is doable. I can’t believe something so simple is working so well, but I’m not going to question it! I’ve gone through about 7k words in Zombie Love in the last week.
In terms of reading, I finished Searching for Sunday, which I really enjoyed. I made progress with both Damn the Rejections and The Subtle Knife.
My birthday was on Monday, and my husband got me a boatload of books. It’s like he knows me. I also went to Knotts with my mom, and we got a whole bunch of rubber duckies in a drop machine so we could race them in the stream at her house.
Perhaps the most interesting news: I talked to a writer friend who is interested in starting a small publishing company. We’ve been discussing it to see how our goals and values mesh, and we’re currently doing a bit of research. I’m not sure if it’s going to develop into anything, but it sure is exciting to think about!