Editing and Dental Hygiene

Ok...the title of this blog was supposed to be a play on words for 'editing is like pulling teeth.'

It's Monday. And I haven't had my coffee yet. Leave me alone.

Spent the weekend editing The Prodigal's Foole based on comments from my crit partner, the lovely and very sarcastic Leah Petersen. Some good stuff and mostly line item things.

But I have two scenes that are still weak. I'll be working to tie them down over the next few days.

And of course I want to add one additional scene based on a single relationship comment made as an aside. The comment might have been secondary, but it opened up a hole that needs resolution.

The editing process has made me realize that I have a love/hate thing going on with my book. I love the story and the characters...but if I keep finding tweaks and scenes I want to play with, I'll never be done. Hate that.

So where's that fine line?

I'll let you know after the next round. Now for my coffee and to take something for this tooth ache.

Fatherhood, Writing, and 'Sucking it Up'

Sometimes you have to do things you just don't like.

Editing repeatedly, for example. I hate it because I'm under this delusion I should get it right the first time.

Small planes, is another example. I hate them. But my son loves them and I promised to take him for his first flying lesson when he turned fourteen. My Ex actually made the suggestion and it was a really good one.

So a colleague of mine at work is married to a pilot. His name is Richard, but everyone calls him 'Bo' (queue the horn of the 'General Lee.')

Bo is fantastic. Seasoned pilot, stunt trained and was absolutely wonderful to my son for his first lesson. All I had to do was buy fuel and lunch for everyone.

And sit in the back of this tiny plane.

So we meet up with Bo at Fitchburg Municipal Airport. It's the type of place where you look to see if anyone is on the runway or approaching to land. Then just go.

Kind of like Boston traffic.

Anyway, we look both ways and we take off. It was a 30 minute flight to western Mass. The plane is off the ground for maybe a minute, and Bo says :"'Kay, Brendan. You have the controls."

My son--in seventh heaven--begins to fly a plane. I was never so proud and totally terrified at the same time.

I mentioned Bo was stunt trained, right?

After directing Brendan to climb toward clouds as if they were WWII Bombers that needed attacking (BTW Brendan is a natural pilot), we start talking about the NASA plane that flies in parabolas to train Astronauts.

Just for the record, the nickname of that NASA plane is 'The Vomit Comet'

Bo takes over from Brendan and proceeds to show us what a flight in 'The Vomit Comet' would be like.

To my credit, I waiting to get sick until we'd landed and I got to the bathroom. Good thing I had a toothbrush with me.

We had lunch (I had water) then proceeded to fly back to Fitchburg. On the way, Riona and Brendan begged Bo to "Do the Vomit Comet again!"

We're all home now. My son had--in his words--the best day of his life. Thanks Bo....you really were great!

I only smell a little bit like throw-up.

I call it a win. Sometimes you just have to suck it up. Which means more editing this evening.

The Juggling Act

Two Thousand words a day.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but unless one is randomly typing words (like the monkey's in the 'infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters' scenario), it becomes a lot more then a word count.

At least for me, that is.

What do I want to write? Where is what I write going? Is it any good? How much editing do I do for those 2000 words and does editing 'count' toward the total?

A dear friend of mine read the 'Were-roaches' story and commented that "It was really fun, but there were a lot of typos." I'm looking at YOU Funky. And your music clip was AWESOME, by the way. Send more please. And say hi to Dillon for me.

Anyway, he was right.

There were (and still are as I really haven't gone back to edit it) a lot of typos. But the purpose of the story was to whip up something real quick based on a funny Twitter stream.

It wasn't an exercise in perfection, more one of creativity.

But of course it was for someone in 'the biz' so maybe I should've taken more care. Which leads me to the Juggling Act.

Writing is one thing. Editing, revising and editing again are completely different.

So the Juggling Act for me comes in two flavors at the moment:

1) For the blog, do I post more raw content with less editing, or do I post less but make sure it's close to perfect?
2) Should my blog be as polished as my manuscripts?

The second question is easier. I say 'No.' My manuscripts, once i've taken a pass at the edits and revisions myself, I send out to be edited one last time by a fresh set of eyes. My PhD sister and my partner are my primary editors....because they are both wicked smart, thorough and do not let the fact that I'm related impact their editing in anyway. They're quite ruthless about it, which is what I need.

Which, I guess, makes answering the first one easier. I'd rather post more 'less polished' content on the blog. I'm sure that may come back to bite me in the ass later, but--as I said in my first post here--this blog is my therapy.

So I guess you guys will have to deal with the typos. At least the juggling isn't with chainsaws.