The novel. It’s not finished but I’ve just passed an artificial barrier erected to mark progress. On April 26 I finished the 99,407-word draft. This afternoon I completed the first intensive editing, reducing the wordage to 91,929. I mention this as a gauge of my seriousness. Like everyone else who parades their stuff before an audience I have ego problems. That I’ve cut out 7478 of my hard-sweated words means, I hope, my ego can be tamed.
I have also re-jigged the initial two paragraphs which The Crow suggested may have been otiose. Parenthetically I should add that the MS doesn’t contain any such five-dollar words and it’s a relief to allow myself this voluptuousness. As I said, an artificial barrier, now in the past. I’m celebrating with a picture of our garden, now someone else’s duty.
What’s next? The rather harder task of finding out whether the story’s any good. How will I do this? I’m uncertain. When I know I’ll post – probably at length. Under the shadow of my blog’s title which may turn out to be ironic.
I have also re-jigged the initial two paragraphs which The Crow suggested may have been otiose. Parenthetically I should add that the MS doesn’t contain any such five-dollar words and it’s a relief to allow myself this voluptuousness. As I said, an artificial barrier, now in the past. I’m celebrating with a picture of our garden, now someone else’s duty.
What’s next? The rather harder task of finding out whether the story’s any good. How will I do this? I’m uncertain. When I know I’ll post – probably at length. Under the shadow of my blog’s title which may turn out to be ironic.
