wips and chains

[ksmith]

Almost 5000 words cut.

It hurts, but it doesn't. A week's labor lost, but what can I do?

There's the apocryphal story about the sculptor who is asked how he knows how to shape a figure. He replies, I just chip away everything that doesn't look like the figure. That's me now--I'm carving away everything in this first half of the book that isn't part of the story. Except I put it there to begin with, which is kinda like piecing together your own block of marble so you can go ahead and remove vast chunks of it instead of simply piecing together the right story bits to begin with.

My process is wasteful stinkage, filled with Fail at every turn.

Comments

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I was thereabouts a month or so ago. Sympathies. I have come through it now though, emerging with a far shinier story. As will you.

Here's hoping.

Writing takes a lot longer than reading.
So cut out repetition and redundancies.

I deal with this constantly, especially with difficult scenes that take a long time to write.

But you already know all this. I know you do. I've read your books!

Oh, thank you! I hope you enjoyed them.