Hiding from my Inner Editor

March

EdMo - the Month for Editing. Let’s just talk a bit about it for this month’s prompt.. Revision

Oh, must we? I've locked my inner editor away and moved into a tower on a different continent where she can't find me and harp about how terrible my writing is...

What is the one thing you struggle with when it comes to editing? 

     When Editing, I struggle most with restructuring the plot and scenes. I loathe the "re-writing" phase, because I have so much difficulty getting the words down on the page in the first place. I am not a prolific writer, and I want the scene to "just be right" the first time, requiring at most grammar, spelling and sentence structure corrections in editing, and maybe dialogue re-working if my character comes across incorrectly when I'm re-reading.

What is the one thing that you find easy to do? 

     I like editing for grammar- I find it simple, and most of my mistakes are just because I was writing quickly (or while overtired, which happens more often than not.)

What is your favorite editing tip?

     If you don't know the meaning of the words off the top of your head, don't use it (unless it's a cultural thing). I have been a reader for years, and my vocabulary tends to be wider than most. If I don't know the word- actually don't know it, as opposed to looking it up for specific definition or spelling- then anyone reading my writing would probably need to look it up as well. And who wants to stop in the middle of a story to go grab a dictionary?

Bonus: Take a selfie/novel-ie of you/your novel in the midst of revision.

     Nope, sorry- these pictures do not exist. I don't currently have anything in the editing process, and if I stop to edit now, I'll never get back to the first drafts. This is a proven fact, and a major reason that after seven years of writing, I still have no finished works.

March Progress Report V

     So, Anime Boston 2014: Magic&Mischief is over. It was totally awesome, my costume held up pretty well, and I am sorry to see it go. First order of business was to catch up on sleep.
    That accomplished, I now need to catch up in WriYe, make enough money to pay off the credit card bills, finish putting the ConCave together and organize it, do some job searching... and basically get back to normal life. Oh, and post pictures, game, and read.


Writing:

• 437 words into Drakaeo
• 3936 new words between KS, Drakaeo and Never Surrender (Dan AU)
• 1-2 hours Editing

Crafts/hobbies: 

• TERA Rising: 4 hours

 Other: 

• WriYe 1st Quarter Verification almost ready to send in
• Finally watched Disney's Frozen

March Progress Report IV

Greetings from AB '14!


Writing:

• NO words into King's Shadow- Go work on the cosplay.
• 510 new words between KS and Never Surrender (Dan AU)
• Editing- NONE- Seriously. Work on the Cosplay.

Crafts/hobbies: 

• TERA Rising: NO hours, Finish your cosplay and get to Boston!  
• Klein cross-play costume completed! 

 Other: 

• Read an entire trilogy- yeah, this was instead of writing....

March Progress Report III

Greetings from the ConCave! Well, we're now less than a week out from AB, still have a few things to wrap up, but we're nearly ready (good thing, too!)

Writing:

• 1200 words into world building for King's Shadow
• 6610 new words between KS and Never Surrender (Dan AU)
• Caught up to WriYe word count goal

Crafts/hobbies:

• TERA Rising: logged about 10 hours 
• Katana- painted, added clear coat finish- just needs the handle bound 
• Plate armor and katana sheath are done, need to be attached with straps
• Sewed small "plates" onto right sleeve
• Wig cut/style- outsourced, waiting for call to pick up

Other:

• Read two books
• Started cleaning out desk

Crafting +1 and other Achievements

     So, as you may have guessed from the post title, I've been playing a few hours of MMORPG this week, and as WriYe (or Jono) would have it, my prompt for this month is editing. In my currently pixel-ated brain, the two functions seem to mirror one another, so I'll run with that.
     Why do they mirror one another? because both take time, skill, and effort to be of any use. You need to be invested in the craft- be it weapons making or writing- and then refine your work to create a useful item. Writing without editing is like gathering without crafting- just so much extra stuff in your inventory. Aren't you glad you don't live in my head?

     And now for Jono's questions: 
What is your favorite method of editing? Do you print it all out and paint it red? Do you use a computer program like Scrivener or Liquid Story Binder to arrange things? Or maybe you just trash the first draft and try it all over again?
     I like to print it all out and attack it- I need paper, and at minimum, a pen.
     Optimally, I want a pen (black or blue), a red pen, sticky tabs, blank lined paper and a highlighter.

• The highlighter (battle axe) is for the obvious stuff, like spelling and run on sentences- things that fix easily once I get back to the keyboard. 
• Regular pen and paper (sword and shield) are for notes- adding plot twists, things that I need to re-write into intelligible English, character connections I just thought of making (Oh, wait- the Ambassador, Kei's uncle- he's the other captain in Capt. Darien's back story!), those corrections. 
• Tabs (map markers) are for plot holes, the urgent ones- the why does my MC tell five different back story timelines to three characters in less than ten chapters?- plot apocalypse level urgent. 
• The Red Pen (bow with multi-shot) I use mostly for punctuation errors- mark your target so that it's easier to find. 

     With these weapons equipped, I then read through the entire dungeon- I mean story- with appropriate music blasting into my headset.

What do you find the most in your editing? Are you a repeated-word-abuser? A comma-phile? Or maybe your grammar just ain't no good?

     The punctuation errors- They are the minions of my editing dungeon, popping up everywhere and often. This is mostly due to my typing skills being sketchy around the edges. I almost never have repeated words- the writing program I did in high school made me almost allergic to that error; they drive me insane. Recently I've become something of an "en-dash-phile," I suppose but I try not to let it get too out of hand while I'm working.

     The dungeon bosses, however, are definitely the alternate plot lines- time consuming and difficult to kill, and sometimes rather disorienting. They are always deserving of tabs, so that they may be found and beaten into submission of the main story.

Bonus: Give us a picture of one of your stories mid-editing.  

This picture will randomly appear when I do my next camera upload ;)

March Progress Report II

And yet another busy week! I hope we finally have all the materials for this cosplay stuff. (Two weeks until Anime Boston! We're cutting it close!) But oh how my writing is suffering...

Writing:

• Managed another 3k this week, still about 3k behind my goal. I was doing great until ...Friday?
• Got another several pages of editing done
• Updated word count spreadsheet

Crafts/hobbies:

• Started playing TERA Rising again, logged about 15 hours
• Katana shaped out of foam, added hilt and enameled
• Plate armor and katana sheath cast out of plaster
• ConCave craft area reorganized and mostly cleaned up

Other:

• Moved uncle's boxes and furniture from basement to storage
• Dismantled office desk and moved from balcony to basement
• Signed up for Camp Nano in April
• Ran Tech Sunday morning

March Progress Report I

Writing:

• Another scene of King's Shadow
• Plotting for the next 'arc' of the story- filled out, created more characters
• Over 10k in Dan's story during the month of February- all after the 14th.

Crafts/hobbies:

• Found a home for ALL of the scrapbook- stuff
• Bought the rest of the materials for Kleina costume

Other:

• Cleared out the Island of Misfit Toys/Moria (In common tongue, the un-insulated room above the garage- did I mention that is was cold this week?) for several hours during the week and pretty much all of Saturday 
• Played in the Elder Scrolls Online BETA (So much fun, even if I am a flailing newbie whose sister set up non-archer characters. Archer= only MMORPG character I have logged more than two hours on. I was trying to play a mage.)
  The mudcrabs though- I remember those from Morrowind- those should just DIE. (Kill on Sight) 

February Progress Report II

Oh, that's right- I need to post this on Sundays. I have the feeling that this is going to be a recurring theme, forgetting the progress report...

    Writing:

• Started scene two in "The King's Shadow"
• First read-through for editing R'anna's In the Wake of Ambition (first 150 pages)
• Continued working on Novel Bibles
• Added another scene in Dan
• Began editing Dan

    Crafty things:

• Completed Quilt
• Organized Scrapbooking Supplies

February Progress Report I

    In an effort to keep the forward momentum going, an update on this week's progress! (I'll be posting these on Sundays, hopefully.)

    Writing:

• Finally finished the first scene of "The King's Shadow"
• Printed out what I have written for the other four stories I'm currently working on, so that I can re-read them and start writing again.
• Mid-creation of novel bibles for all five works in progress.

    Crafty things:

• Hand sewed center eight blocks of Quilt (January). Need to set up a sewing machine to do edge word and bind.
• Started sorting "scraps" for SMASHbook (Just My Cup of Tea) and two scrapbooks (ConCave and an unnamed personal one). It looks like a craft store blew up.

    Other:

• My Taxes (definitely deserves a mention)
• Read two books
• Researched for a professional portfolio (at least 2-3 hours)

Organization- or Lack Thereof: A List of Projects in Progress

     Now, having pretty much taken January off from writing in favor of hand stitching a quilt (six years in the making), it is time for me to get my writing in order and ready myself for the insanity that is authorship.
     I have signed up for Write Year 2014 in an attempt to motivate myself to get some writing accomplished. I have some hope of keeping up with their blogging circle. (Anything is better than not blogging at all, right?)
    So now my task is to rediscover all those projects I had lost in the maelstrom of college and graduate school.

    Thus far, I have uncovered:

• a scrapbook
• a SMASHbook
• the Psychedelic Quilt of Doom
• several counted cross stitches
• a huntress costume
• a SAO Klein cross-play (no, this is not cross dressing!)
• a barely- begun knitted shawl
• a pair of finger-less gloves (knitting)
• a pillow sham (also knitting)

    And now for the writing projects:

To Write:

• The King's Shadow- medieval fantasy world, originally started in 2009. MC- Aiden Trevallyn.
• Drakaeo- feudal high fantasy; Dragons (nobility), Elves (servant/rebels), Humans (peasant class), originally begun in 2011. MC- Drakaeo Llywellyn
• Caelmare- clan-ish elemental mage culture; Begun 2012. MCs Saeki Kuroni and Tsora (who may or may nothave a last name)
• Seeking the Dawn- medieval border war with random magical elements? Originally begun in 2012. MCs Djari and Sirael.
• Chimera- military/mob dystopian madness? Begun early 2013. MCs Tobias (hawk) and Leon (viper).
• Trevin- Medieval desert culture. Tried in 2008, scrapped. Re-start?

To Edit:

• Dan&Ian- ever-growing universe. Something similar to an rp with startling resemblance to a novel. They're basically hit men...
• Sarius- a friend's story I'm beta reading/editing.

    So, first things first- I suppose I need to print it all out and see where the heck I am, in order to determine where I might be going. Should be.... Interesting? 

    Beware impending avalanches of paper!