Twenty-five out of twenty-eight chapters done for the second round of editing. I have never been so sick of myself in my life. Reading words I wrote, characters I created, little lines I thought were so cute and witty--- I hate it all. And it's not even like I can simply skim over it. I have to actually read it for little mistakes like "begin" when it should really be "being". Ugggggh. But apparently you
are supposed to really hate and lose faith and never want to look at the book again for a few months before sending it out. So that's good news cause I am totally there.
I basically spent my entire weekend at Starbucks editing. I would start off so enthusiastically: "Oh I am starting on chapter 6. I can probably make it to chapter 20 in a few hours and call it a night." ...Two hours pass... "Oh no, I'm only on chapter 8. How did I waste two hours on two stinking chapters. Okay let's try to make it at least to chapter 15." ... Two more hours pass... "Chapter 12 is done? Okay, all finished for today."
But I mean really, it is 359 pages and 111,043 words. TOO. MUCH.
Do you enjoy little stories about my stupidity when it comes to editing? Well here come some!
- Leaving off the "-n't" completely changes the sentence. Obvious? Yes. But I know what I am trying to say but sometimes I don't read what I've actually written. I've made this mistake at least twice in crucial sentences.
- I have a lot of "gripping" in the book. Seats, chairs, podiums, tables, banisters. But I guess that makes sense since my characters don't breathe properly. They need all the help they can get.
- ERRONEOUS COMMAS. Seriously, I use them like they are going out of style and I found them on super clearance with an additional fifty percent off. I have to stop.
- There are only so many ways to say someone wraps/ curls/ slung their arm around your waist or shoulders. And I pretty much just listed the three ways to do it.
- Luckily in my Advanced Composition class (a fancy way of saying non-fiction writing) we talked about editing and how to get the most punch out of a single sentence by omitting unnecessary words (even though we students argued that we put in the fluff to meet the teacher's ridiculous page/word length requirement). But this has come in handy while editing especially in terms of possession and the word "of". Why say "the edge of the table" when you can just say "the table's edge"? Sure it only saves me two words but multiply that by 1,000 and this thing is probably 2,000 words shorter than it could have been.
- And thank you B'Way in AP English for teaching me not to split the infinitive. See? I even did it just now: "not to split" instead of "to not split".
- "Just" is still a problem. But I've just accepted it by this point. And no I did not purposely use it just then. Or then. I'll stop now.
- Definitely found a few spots where I used my sibling's real name instead of their character name. Most certainly will be doing a search of each person's name before this whole thing is done. So pretty much in three hours.
- Two of my favorite words I like to use: Nonetheless and albeit. Don't know why I love 'em but I do and always have.
- I have overused the word "surprised" and its synonyms. Apparently my characters are easily impressed (well, that or dumb).
- And the absolute worst part of editing: I have the scenes so clearly imagined in my head. I know what I need to say, I know what I need to get across. So I will be editing and find a word that I don't care for. So I think for a minute before coming up with an awesome new amazing word. So I delete and replace the stinky word with the new word. I give myself a mental pat on the back and continue on my way. Only to skip down three lines and... oh... I already used the perfect word here. So that's why it seemed so perfect. And it's back to square one.
And seriously, people watching at Starbucks never disappoints. Yesterday the terrible twosome reappeared with their mom and her much younger boyfriend/fiance who felt the need to make out in the middle of the place. Classy. I also found out the satanic children's names and am fighting the urge to change my brother's name in the book since it is the same as one of the little demons. Here were the highlights from our encounter:
1. The older boy came in and yelled, no, make that screamed, at one of the workers that he needed a cup of water. George the Worker held up a finger (not the one I would have chosen) and said "One minute, I'm with a customer". Well the kid kept screaming until finally someone else got him the cup. Which he promptly took to a table and wrenched the lid off and spilled, I'd say, 1/4 of its contents on the table and floor, stuck his straw with the paper still on it into the cup, and ripped off the now wet paper and threw it on the ground. It was at this point that I actually gave the children, yes children, dirty looks. They were behaving horribly and I was appalled.
2. The younger boy was eating a brownie or a cupcake or something and dropped it on the ground. The older brother stepped on it with his shoe and mushed it onto the floor, refusing to lift his foot. The little boy still ate it when it was finally relinquished two minutes later (he also spent these two minutes spinning in circles directly next to me yet again).
3. I did see the mom's boyfriend/ fiance throw the kid down in a chair outside and grab his face and scream at him for sliding across the hood of the mom's convertible. But it was probably more so for doing potential damage to the car as opposed to actually disciplining the little hellion.
Fortunately, the kids weren't there today (Just for the record, the first time I wrote that sentence, I forgot the "-n't". I have a problem). But I did get to encounter this:
Yeah, that's a parrot (that talks and scratches its master's head with his beak) in the middle of Starbucks. Does this not violate some type of health code? My best friend in high school was terrified of birds. It's a relatively common fear. I sort of wanted to see someone freak out. One lady kept her distance while clutching her chest but that was the best I got.
There was also a high school aged looking girl (named Haven, I saw it on her notebook) who sat down with what I assumed was her dad at the table next to me. Haven kept turning around and looking over her shoulder in my direction. There is no way to make some feel more self conscious than doing this 50 times in 10 minutes. You can think I'm exaggerating but I happened to look at the seconds on my clock right when it was a new minute and I thought, hey just for kicks, let's count how many times in 60 seconds she looks over. I didn't pick a particularly active minute just to prove a point. It was a completely random minute. How many times in sixty seconds? FOUR TIMES. Multiply that by the 30 minutes she was sitting near me and I actually fought the urge to ask her to switch seats with her dad so she would at the very least stop glancing over her shoulder and could just look straight ahead and out the window. At first I thought she was just trying to see the parrot since the man did go outside but then I guess she was just waiting on her math tutor to get there. Haven, staring is rude but so is blogging about strangers so who I am to talk?
Oh and way to get your act together Atlanta. BEAUTIFUL weather this weekend. Hard to believe there was snow on the ground a week ago. Let's keep it in the sixties this week, please!
