When it comes to revision, line editing is pretty standard, and if the line-edit is a slog, I'm not sure how to make it go faster.
Which actually tells me it's probably about normal. Maybe I'll get faster in some areas as I get used to them, or figure them out, or whatever, but from what you've said in previous posts, that only means there will be something else that I'll need to do the same with.
I think what I need, to say anything of more use, is to know what the nature of the slowdown is. Are you struggling with the language? Are you at the point at which you're so damn tired of the book you can't look at the words objectively? Is it something more structural? Or is it just that you know you need to make it better, but you're not sure what constitutes that better?
For this particular book, it's pretty much a language issue. Before I wrote short stories, I had a certain voice that fits this novel and the world it's written in. When I was learning to write shorts, that particular voice was frowned upon and eventually became stripped from my writing. At the time I couldn't complete a novel rough draft because i was going about it all wrong for me. Now I have the draft, but am trying to find my way back to the voice.
But it's also the fact that when I DID figure out how to write a whole novel and end up with a completed draft (rough or otherwise, I got past chapter 6 and was pretty proud of that! lol), it was like a light went on. So I've kinda been hoping there's some kind of light that can go on with the revisions, and feeling like maybe I'm missing something in the process.
I'm not tired of the book. I WANT it done. I want the revisions done so I can hold up a completed, as polished as I can get it novel and say, "See, I CAN do this!" And I want to finish it so I can get the 2 books that follow it out of my head and move on to the second trilogy so I can get THAT out of my head.
I just don't want to take 14 years for the revisions lightbulb to come on like it did for the writing lightbulb. lol
All of which was probably a ramble that didn't make as much sense as I'd hoped. lol
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 10:15 pm (UTC)When it comes to revision, line editing is pretty standard, and if the line-edit is a slog, I'm not sure how to make it go faster.
Which actually tells me it's probably about normal. Maybe I'll get faster in some areas as I get used to them, or figure them out, or whatever, but from what you've said in previous posts, that only means there will be something else that I'll need to do the same with.
I think what I need, to say anything of more use, is to know what the nature of the slowdown is. Are you struggling with the language? Are you at the point at which you're so damn tired of the book you can't look at the words objectively? Is it something more structural? Or is it just that you know you need to make it better, but you're not sure what constitutes that better?
For this particular book, it's pretty much a language issue. Before I wrote short stories, I had a certain voice that fits this novel and the world it's written in. When I was learning to write shorts, that particular voice was frowned upon and eventually became stripped from my writing. At the time I couldn't complete a novel rough draft because i was going about it all wrong for me. Now I have the draft, but am trying to find my way back to the voice.
But it's also the fact that when I DID figure out how to write a whole novel and end up with a completed draft (rough or otherwise, I got past chapter 6 and was pretty proud of that! lol), it was like a light went on. So I've kinda been hoping there's some kind of light that can go on with the revisions, and feeling like maybe I'm missing something in the process.
I'm not tired of the book. I WANT it done. I want the revisions done so I can hold up a completed, as polished as I can get it novel and say, "See, I CAN do this!" And I want to finish it so I can get the 2 books that follow it out of my head and move on to the second trilogy so I can get THAT out of my head.
I just don't want to take 14 years for the revisions lightbulb to come on like it did for the writing lightbulb. lol
All of which was probably a ramble that didn't make as much sense as I'd hoped. lol