Editing: Like ripping a band-aid from a wound that needs airing

[mugenmine]

Top Gear Day 21

It has begun, and yeay to that. Amaretto cake helped with the start of Top Gear V2 editing. It was like ripping off a band-aid, but once it was off, it got a lot easier. I stared at the page for a few moments in panic, but then the pen took over and the X-ing out and chicken scratch began. Below is page 5, and although it's a map of crazytown this makes me incredibly happy. This much pen and scribbles on a page makes me feel good about a project and it's the first step of making it actually story shaped.

(page 5... in which some talking happens...)

I cut out whole paragraphs, moved shit from point A to B in many places. Hacked away at words and then added some more in for good measure, temporary better words than the ones removed, I think for now.  I only tackled part one, about 2K of words. I still need to add in a scene setting intro, like why the fuck are they there, in 2 paragraphs or less, but that detail can wait. it's not holding up the story, it's only detail.

After editing, I walked more, I probably walked for 3 hours today. Then I went and watched 2 hours of belly dance. Some of which was good, others... a bit not... At one point I actually said to myself, if this girl fucking disembowels herself in front of me I'm going to be fucking pissed... (you never know when a dancer pulls out a knife what the fuck is going to happen...) But Hells, no one died and everyone gets kudos for having the bravery to get up in front of everyone. Then I came home and translated crazy scratching into Top Gear V2.  Tomorrow I start the bloated part 2 of the story...I imagine extraneous descriptions will be axed to make space for the important bits of character development that may or may not have been missed... But before that I will have to sit through a movie that I have no idea what it will be. I have tix for the secret festival tomorrow. which means I show up at the theater at 11 and sign an NDA and get shown a mystery movie and then wont be able to tell anyone about it... I hope it's good.

I'm feeling a bit better now that I can take my knife to these words. Just keep cutting... Now I eat chocolate...

Comments

[pennypaperbrain.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, scribbly on-paper editing. I've never done that. My drafts would be confetti!

I guess it works for you, or you wouldn't do it.

[mugenmine.livejournal.com]

Not sure how it works so well considering the mess I make. I think I just like wandering off with my papers and scribbling in a coffee shop. Though the big problem comes when I have to take the chicken-scratched papers back home and try to decipher what the hell I was trying to do as I transfer the edits back to the soft copy... :-)

[duh-i-read.livejournal.com]

Haha I have done this for fics I've beta'd, and every once in a while on my own stuff. I should probably be just carrying around printouts of my story to edit throughout the day, but i don't want to deal with the question of 'oh, what are doing?' and my 'ummm just some...stuff...you know' answer.

But, good to hear about the editing process is coming along.

[mugenmine.livejournal.com]

You could always say, oh there are academic papers! Now back off! LOL :-)