Editing

You work so very hard writing a book - finding just the right words, making sure that sentence makes sense. You want it to flow. You want the reader to get so caught up in this world you've created that they don't want to leave it. How many hours, days, months do you devote to this baby you're creating? You live and breathe and dream it! Then you submit it and hold your breath hoping an editor will also fall in love with your story. What if they don't like it? What if they aren't willing to take a chance that readers will like it enough to make it worth their while publishing it? So many questions rattle around in your head, over and over in the weeks - or months - it takes to hear from the publisher. Maybe it wasn't as good as I thought? Maybe I've lost my touch and I can't write anymore? Maybe I just haven't got what it takes to be an author. Finally get you get that phone call - or e-mail. They do want it!! But - and here's the caveat: It is way too long. Things are tough in the publishing world right now and they need you to cut 100 pages from this work you've put your heart and soul into for the past year. 100 pages! That's a 4th of the book! Pare it down from 124,500 words to 90,000 words. You pour over the reader's evaluation sheets. One hated it - nothing redeeming in the whole work. One really liked it - one was totally neutral. What didn't they like? Guess that should be the first thing to go. Scenes, pages, whole sections deleted! Have you ever had to thin peaches? You must take those tiny babies from the tree that are clustered too close to one another to leave room for the remaining ones to grow big. I hate pulling those baby peaches off the tree. It makes me feel like I'm committing homicide! And that's exactly how I feel taking out all those thousands of words that I worked so hard to get just right. All the research, all the hours at the computer, gone with a single swipe of the delete key. Granted, it should make the story better, sharper, more concise, just like thinning all those baby peaches will leave the tree with fewer peaches that will grow big and juicy and be more wonderful than they could be otherwise. But I still feel like I'm committing homicide when I delete all those parts of the story I worked so hard to create. Back to the edits and killing my babies.

Reason? Or Just a Rut?

Most of us are most comfortable moving at an even pace through life.  We tend to get up each morning about the same time and head for bed at about the same time each night.  We talk to pretty much the same people day after day, check the same news sources, prefer a certain chair, and early on we establish a set protocol for getting ourselves ready to face each day, then follow a set pattern of beginning our work, checking our mail, getting the kids off to school, exercising for a certain period of time, eating meals, watching the same television shows, catching up on face book, or accomplishing whatever tasks have become part of our daily routine.  We're creatures of habit.

 A certain amount of routine saves time and brings order to our lives; but sometimes we're just in a rut.  Long ago a teacher advised a group of us to "live until we die." At first that appears to be a nonsense statement, but in truth, it is quite telling.  What is the point of reducing life to a boring repetition of mundane tasks?  We're alive, but are we living? Each day should bring a new discovery, a different perspective, a new realization.  The scriptures tell us God meant for us to have joy.  There may be peace in following a rut, but not much joy.

 

When I was about fifteen I lived in a house with a circular traffic pattern.  There was a kitchen, then a dining room, followed by a living room, which opened on my parents' bedroom.  Another door from the bedroom led to a tiny hall where we could go upstairs, exit the back door, or return to the kitchen.  The floors were all linoleum and every few days my mother would mop the kitchen, then the dining room, the living-room, the bedroom, the hall, then carry her mop bucket out the back door to dump it. One day I noticed she started with the bedroom and did the circle in reverse.  When I asked her why, she said she just got tired of doing it the same way all of the time and needed a change, besides she noticed spots that needed more attention by viewing them from a different angle. I've thought about that many times over the years and have come to the conclusion she was right.  Change is good.  Change doesn't always have to be the big life changing events.  Even small changes redirect our perspective and require us to think.

 

I recommend taking a walk with a small child. There's something about walking with a small child that invites a different view of life as the child notices and is excited about every ant or small creature that crosses the sidewalk or path.  Toddlers investigate flowers, weeds and the neighbor's cat. They notice birds.  The world is new and ready to be explored when a child takes an adult's hand and begins a trek down a path so familiar to the adult that he/she no longer actually sees it.

 

It's all right to enjoy a particular routine, to be comfortable with an established pattern of life, but it is also a good thing to shake up that routine a little bit from time to time.  Take a different street, try a new shampoo, learn a new dance step, read a different genre or try a new author, get an e-reader, taste a food you hated as a child, run instead of walk somewhere, be early for church, go to a different temple, or just do anything that's a little different from the usual pattern.  You can make the big drastic changes, experiment with the things you've always dreamed of doing.  That's good too, but in the little changes we learn about ourselves and are reminded of the reasons we do things one way instead of another.  We pay closer attention to the things that matter to us.  It's in deviating from a habitual pattern that we discover if there's a reason for the pattern we follow, or if we're just in a rut.

The "Eyes" Have it! (Or will get it)

I was driving us somewhere a couple of weeks ago - we were in my car and if Glenn drives he has to adjust the seat, then I have to readjust the seat when I get in next time, so sometimes he just slides into the passenger seat to make it easier. I've had blurry vision for awhile - even got new glasses after just a year with my old ones but it didn't help my far vision. Unfortunately, things are so blurry that I can't read streets signs until I'm right on them. That hasn't been a problem because when I'm in town, I know the streets. When I drive to the temple, it's easy - take the 14 to I-5, then the 405 and exit on Santa Monica Blvd. Turn left at the temple, another left and I'm there. (1 1/2 hours later on a day when traffic is moving!) I can see cars and other objects just fine, even if they are just slightly out of focus, sort of like driving with a dirty windshield. But I had to take a friend to Los Angeles to a hospital in an area I wasn't familiar with, and that's when I decided I might have a slight problem with my vision. Flash back to the trip with my husband - he asked what the street coming up was. I couldn't see it. He could NOT believe I couldn't see it. My far vision has always been superb - I could see things long before he could. All the way home, he kept testing me - can you see that? Can you read that? No. So he made me call my eye doctor immediately and make an appointment. I knew I had cataracts - my doctor had been watching them for a couple of years, but he said they shouldn't be a problem yet. "What is a problem?" I ask. :When it interferes with your life style." "Uh, it is interfering." "Could your husband drive you?" That was too funny! I drive everywhere - all the time! (I'm in the car so much I can get through numerous books on CD every month!) "Then I guess we'd better fix it," the doctor said. That fix will entail a tiny slit in my eye. He will lift the flap up, scoop out the cloudy lens with a tiny vacuum, making sure that he gets all of it, then he will slip a synthetic lens into that space - made by Alcon in Texas. He will drop the flap back over the new lens and it will not even require stitches to heal. I'll sit around all day with a patch on my eye and go in the next morning for him to check his handiwork. Voila - I should be able to see clearly again. I bring this up because I think it happens way too often in our lives. Something gets a tiny bit off-kilter or out of focus and it is such a tiny problem that we adjust to it. It gets worse only in very small increments and we continue to adjust. A child's behavior, a politician's lies, the material we watch on TV. A PG-13 movie that really should have received an R-rating. (I don't watch R movies so I'm very unhappy when they slip something in that shouldn't be there!) Things change so gradually that we don't really notice. We adapt. Socialism comes one tiny change - one executive order at a time. One more program to enslave the populace and make them more dependent on the government. It is definitely time to wake up to the fact that things aren't the way they should be and do something about it. It took my husband to spur me on to the doctor and new vision - (I hope! - I'll report in September after the surgery.) I think I'd better go down to my congressman's office and volunteer my help to stop the progression of socialism in our government. My new vision could help save my life or someone else's. My volunteering might help in our fight to save America. Things are already getting more focused!

Debt

Hubby George and I were working on our budget the other night. We were figuring out what money was coming in, what was needed to run the household, what bills we had to pay, and if there was enough left over to take an end of summer road trip. We were conscientious about not stretching ourselves too thin. We wanted to take care of our charitable donations and have some to put into savings. It was an evening of numbers that made my head ache, but, in the end, the effort was well worth it. We felt great that we managed to take care of the necessities and still have a bit for our trip.

I bring this up as a contrast to how our government cannot seem to figure out this common sense approach to finance--you don't spend more than you take in. I ran across an article that I'm going to share with you about how the U.S Government spends "our" money.

A warning before you read: this might give you a headache.

U.S Tax Revenue     $2,170,000,000,000
Federal Budget         $3,820,000,000,000
New Debt                  $1,650,000,000,000
Oustanding debt    $142,710,000,000,000
Recent budget cut     $38,500,000,000

What do you say we take away 8 zeros and pretend this is our household budget?

Annual Family income     $21,700
Money the family spent    $38,200
New debt on credit card   $16,500
Outstanding balance on credit card  $142,710
Total budget cuts    $385

Take two asprin and call your Congressman.  

Life is Getting Too Crazy When . . .

I apologize for not posting anything for a few weeks. In my defense (and I'm sure many of you feel the same way) August has been a blur of activity. This past weekend would be a great example of what I'm talking about. In our clan we've survived two funerals, one reunion, and a wedding . . . all in a three day span. And that doesn't include a wedding that took place on my side of the family tree, something we were unable to attend because of everything going on in my husband's family.

So while I was doing quite a balancing act preparing food to take to Kennon's cousins who lost their father this past week, and wrapping a wedding gift . . . and other assorted tasks, I couldn't find the sympathy card for Kennon's cousins. I searched everywhere I could think of . . . then came back to the kitchen table where I was certain I had left it. There sat the wedding gift all nicely wrapped . . . with a card attached . . . and a sick feeling descended. On a nearby counter I spied a wedding card. Groaning, I carefully removed the card attached to the wedding gift, and wallah (Or however you spell that word. At this point in time I don't care.) there was the missing sympathy card. Oy! Most uncool! In my haste, I hadn't noticed which card I was signing. There under the large sentence that said something like, "Our sympathy is with you on this tragic occasion," I had written: "CONGRATULATIONS!" and signed our names with much love and caring. Then I had attached it to the wedding gift.

Wow! That would have been all sorts of awkward. We're laughing about it now, but that was truly a near miss of epic proportion. Sadly, I had to throw away the sympathy card, since there was no way to salvage it. I mean, one doesn't send a message of "CONGRATULATIONS" to people who have lost a loved one. It just isn't done.

This experience did make me realize that I possibly need to slow down a tiny bit, and as a dear cousin is always telling me, "Just breathe!" So what if in one day I had to attend a viewing for a funeral, a wedding reception, and a hot dog roast at a nearby park for a family reunion on Kennon's side of the family. In between all of that, I need to learn to relax and focus on getting my brain cells to work to avoid future embarrassment.

I doubt life will slow down much . . . at all. I'm already looking at everything on the docket for this week and cringing. But I will strive to make time for a little bit of R & R so things don't get so cluttered. Good luck to me I say, but that is my goal. How do the rest of you handle multi-tasking moments? Has anyone else ever sent a sympathy card to a wedding?

AWOL

Since the dozen or so writers who joined forces to form this blog site began posting our rambling thoughts, I've tried very hard to post a blog whenever my turn came around.  I nearly missed it this time and this won't be much of a blog I fear.  I'm tired and just a bit blue.  The tired part comes because I've been at the temple the past two days and my bad knees have made the days long and painful.  The blue part is because, you see, today is my little sister's birthday.  She died two years ago and she's been on my mind a lot today. I miss her. Though we fought and competed when we were kids; we were best friends too, and the best friends part of our relationship won out as we grew older.

My computer isn't playing nice tonight.  It keeps dropping the to address on every email I attempt to answer, forcing me to look the addresses up and enter them letter by letter. In addition to answering letters, I've been catching up on a couple of contests I'm involved with.  Go to my blog to check out a bunch of fun contests with book and book-related prizes to bring some sizzle to the end of summer.

I'm half asleep and can't think of anything intelligent (or otherwise) to say.  I promise I'll do better next time.

Punctuation is Important!!

My husband dropped this little article on my desk this morning and thought I'd enjoy reading it. Little did he know it would end up being reproduced many times over. My Laurel lesson on Sunday will include it and I thought writers everywhere---as well as job seekers everywhere---should know about this! Tech Industry CEO Kyle Wiens at Harvard Business Review, July 20, 2012 wrote the following: "If you think an apostrophe was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, you will never work for me. If you think a semicolon is a regular colon with an identity crisis, I will not hire you. If you scatter commas into a sentence with all the discrimination of a shotgun, you might make it to the foyer before we politely escort you from the building . . . Everyone who applies for a position at either of my companies, iFixit or Dozuki, takes a mandatory grammar test. Extenuating circumstances aside (dyslexia, English language learners, etc.) if job hopefuls can't distinguish between "to" and "too," their applications go into the bin . . . Grammar is relevant for all companies. Yes, language is constantly changing, but that doesn't make grammar unimportant. Good grammar is credibility, especially on the internet. In blog posts, on Facebook statuses, in e-mails, and on company websites, your words are all you have. They are a projection of you in your physical absence. And, for better or worse, people judge you if you can't tell the difference between their, there, and they're . . . If it takes someone more than 20 years to notice how to properly use "it's," then that's not a learning curve I'm comfortable with. So even in this hyper-competitive market, I will pass on a great programmer who cannot write. Grammar signifies more than just a person's ability to remember high school English. I've found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test will also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing---like stocking shelves or labeling parts." Love this man! Granted, we can all make mistakes when we are dashing of a quick e-mail to someone, but those mistakes stand out like a red stain on a white dress! (Especially to writers who are tuned in to that sort of thing.) But what about budding writers who haven't yet discovered how crucially important grammar is to an editor - and to a reader? I'm not sure how we get the word out to our kids to pay attention in English class, but if their livelihood depends on it, I guess we'd better make an all out effort!