Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Aftermath

After my positive vibes Sunday night and my post Monday morning, I had the difficult task of following through, and I admit I'm crap at that. I tried so hard Monday to get some good writing done, but after working all day on different bits and bobs, I had nothing substantial to show for my day. Again. Stubbornly I decided I must finish one thing on my to-do list, so I stayed up until 1am setting up our online bill pay, so at least I could say I finished something. [I realize we should've set up online billpay ages ago, but as my health declined the last year, lovely husband took over paying the bills. Funnily enough, though he's the science major and I'm the humanities major, he's the luddite and prefers to do things the old-fashioned way, such as paying all the bills by check. (He only got his first cellphone last year because his boss made him!) Now that I'm finally able to do more, I said I'd start doing the bills again and I'd transition us to online billpay. It's so much simpler and quicker! I also want to switch to receiving e-bills to save paper and our filing cabinet, but that freaked him out, so I told him I'd break him in easy.]

Frustrated with myself, I sat down yesterday with chapter three again and decided I would finish the edit. I'm one of those writers who continually goes back to the beginning and edits as I go along. Yes, one of those. I realize all writing books/teachers tell you not to do this, but I can't help it. I'm half editor at heart. It drives me nuts to continue my writing when I know a chapter isn't working as it is. Plus, since this is my first novel, I'm learning as I go, and I made two major changes that actually required me to go back to the beginning. First, I decided to change the voice from past to present tense. I am still changing all my chapters to present tense because every time I try to make that simple change, I end up editing everything else along the way. Second, my book has two narrators and I changed my second narrator from the granddaughter of the first narrator (the story is about the first narrator) to the daughter of the first narrator, which meant that a lot of details had to be changed. I know I mentioned this all a long time ago, but I'm still dealing with some of these changes. I've been trying to edit from past to present tense in chapter three for awhile, but there are a lot of other things that I need to edit, and they've been hanging me up along the way. Yesterday, I forced myself to ignore all the other details and I finished the tense edit. Huzzah! I've printed it out, made myself an outline for the chapter (the chapter is 2/3 written), and listed the things I need to strengthen and change. Today, I'm going to attack it with a pen because I seem to be able to edit much quicker in that medium. Hopefully my body will cooperate, but I woke up with a headache and it hasn't subsided yet. Also, husband came home sick last night. He rarely gets sick, but he's feverish and congested, so he went to work for a few hours early this morning to finish a project and now he's home sleeping on the couch, so I'll be taking care of him. Cross your fingers that I don't catch what he has. Usually I'm the one spreading sickness around here, so the odds aren't good. (Ahem, think positive thoughts!) But hey, I finished the chapter three tense edit! And episode three of The War is on tonight. So yay!

6 comments:

Yvonne said...

I envy your editing skills! Hope you feel better soon.

Kristen @ frostingandfroth.com said...

Glad to hear you've made such progress and sorry to hear the husband is sick. Keep up the good work and well wishes to Mr. Angie. ;-)

Jenny Beattie said...

All the best.
JJx

John Soanes said...

Crikey, I'm impressed by the changes you've decided to make - changes of tense and narrator will indeed mean you have a lot of work to do, but I completely understand the wish to start again from the start; carrying on when you know something's amiss earlier always leaves me with that uncomfortable feeling I get when I think I've gone out, and left the oven on...
(Came here via Strugglingauthor, by the way. Hello!)
J

Rebecca said...

I edit as I go along too. I don't think any one way is wrong - you just have to do it the way that suits you.

yes - and paying bills online is much easier - funny how that freaks your husband out - it freaks Hilary out a bit too, he thinks the money is just disappering into nowhere land.

Angie said...

Update: Husband is finally improving after staying home two days with a burning fever and mending over the weekend. I had migraines the rest of the week and weekend, but they seem to have subsided today (fingers crossed, knocking on wood!)

Thanks hellojed, but as you know I envy your speed!

Cheers Kristen. Mr Angie slept after we left yesterday but is on the mend today.

JJ, cheers!

John, thanks for visiting and welcome. Another strugglingauthor reader, huh? :) Yes, it is very much like that feeling, and since I can't shake it, I guess I better go with it.

Rebecca, although I know I should do what suits me, it helps to know others use the same method. So thanks. :)
I think husband has the same thoughts (plus we did try billpay with our old bank and had a problem, so I guess trying it once was enough for him).

Angie xx