Fixing

[ksmith]

It takes me longer to adjust existing sentences than it does to create them from whole cloth. Scenes that seemed to work so well fall apart upon closer inspection. Mood and tone and emotion don't fit together as well as they should. Beloved phrases become surprisingly easy to scrap.

Comments

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

yes yes yes yes. Exactly. On the nose. Couldn't have said it better. And now back to the revision . . .

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

You know how when you stare at a word so long that it no longer looks right? You swear it's misspelled, even though it isn't?

I stare at sentences and wonder why they don't track. They used to. I used to think these scenes were pretty good.

So I tweak. Twitch words around. Then I hit a wall because I have managed to change the meaning of the scene so completely that I either need to go and put things back the way they were or rethink the whole damned passage.

Have I mentioned that I didn't do nearly enough work this weekend? And that I'm tired? And that it's already Monday morning?

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

Yes. Oh man. i am so there. I've got three days to finish the last 80 pages of this revision, and I need to add two scenes and cut a bunch of stuff that doesn't fit anymore, and I have to work the day job. And the worst part is I have no idea if it works at all anymore. I am completely cross-eyed at this point.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Cross-eyed and clueless is a bad place to be. You really have no idea where you are. You can't see through the clouds, and your instruments are malfunctioning. All you can do is keep flying straight ahead and hope you don't hit a mountain.

Good times.