Jam-packed July - 500 words/editing a day, all genres welcome

onesecondglance

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July? Who - what - where did that come from? Time is getting fuzzy. A week can last a year, yet a month is gone before you've even got out of bed.

Nonetheless! We write on. Check in here with your goals, achievements, or just whatever's on your mind. Let's pack July with as much progress as we can!


(Jam-packed is a British expression for being... very packed. As in, "the train was jam-packed!". I guess it's the same idea as being jammed together? Who knows...)
 

onesecondglance

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*checks June goals*

finish the damned book? what was I thinking...


Ahem. So my totally original, not-at-all carried over goal for July is to... finish the damned book. The finish line is close, I can feel it! Except it feels like it's one of those clown handkerchiefs that just gets longer the more you pull at it.

Wishing you all the best for this month!
 

Saoirse

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So true about a month lasting a year and a month lasting...wait, what? I think I got that wrong. Time's fuzzy for me too. Look, it's the 5th and I could have sworn it was the 1st....

OSG, good luck with finishing the damned book. :)

This month I'm supposed to be revising The Vanishing for August 1st, but it's not looking good so far. Work's been crazy. My computer's wacky (and it's not even 2 years old!) and I'm still in migraine-land. But I am still going to try, gosh darn it. That's really my main goal. And to try to keep writing poetry.
 

onesecondglance

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Best of luck, Saoirse!

I'm just about halfway through this current pass of edits, and almost wish I could just sack it off and say it's finished. It's got to the point where I'm longing to skip this item on the edit list and get to the "analyse every instance of these overused words" bit... that bad!

But I ask myself at the end of each day, "did I make the book better today?" So far, the answer is still yes, so I guess I should keep going. If I can knock this pass off by the end of the week, that will be a big step. So that's a mini-goal.


How are the rest of you all doing?
 

Zan75

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Salutations

It's July already??
Best wishes to everyone on the progress trail.

Last month was....alright. Made progress so I'm not complaining. This month has started off slow, but I'm hopeful something will be accomplished :)
 

onesecondglance

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*waves to Zan*

I finished this pass! Now for a beer before I begin the next pass... editing's great, isn't it?
 

Saoirse

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::waves to Zan and OSG::

Editing is so much fun.

I haven't done any revision, actually. Work has been keeping me on my toes. I am hoping to change that tomorrow.

Wrote another poem a few days ago while waiting for my rice to cook.::shrugs:: I'm not good at waiting.
 
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onesecondglance

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Hi gang,

hope you're all finding the progress you want. I'm about halfway through this current edit, pass #4/6, so my interim target is to try and get at least somewhere into pass #5 by the end of the week.

For info, mainly cos I want to document it for my own reference later, but also in case anyone's curious how I've approached this edit, here's how the passes break down:

#1: full readthrough on paper with handwritten line edits, notes, comments, and questions
#2: implementation of pass #1 notes (includes full rewrites of some scenes and chapters)
#3: big picture changes to firm up character arcs and themes
#4 (currently in this phase): detailed work on worldbuilding and fixing small plot holes, plus anything new I found in the previous passes (or deferred because they were too hard :gone:)
#5: overused / filler / weak words - basically doing "find all" then going through one by one
#6: final read-aloud and line edits as I go

Completing the first two passes takes the book to effectively "second draft" status, so it's readable, but still requires polishing. Whether it's the third or fourth draft that by the end of #6 is mainly to do with file naming - I'll probably make a new file after #5 just to clean up the change tracking, which will make the read-through in #6 easier.


Hang in there, gang! We're halfway there (livin' on a prayer!).
 

Carrie

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That's a really helpful breakdown! I'm going to be heading into editing very soon and will keep this in mind.
 

onesecondglance

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Phase four complete! So it's on to looking at individual words next (e.g. do I really need to mention "light" nearly five hundred times in a 120k manuscript?). The sandpaper is getting finer...

Hope you've all had a decent week, or if not, you have a nice(r) weekend to look forward to.
 

Saoirse

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OSG Very helpful, and congrats on finishing phase four! I'm basically on what would be your phase #1 on The Vanishing. The only difference with my process is I dive in and do everything at once after the read through. I'm insane.

Carrie - Welcome! Good luck with your editing. :)


More poem writing, but no revision. Lots of working too. Started another proofreading job. Migraines are getting slightly better, so that's encouraging. :)
 

Zan75

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I haven't made a post since when?? Where does the time go?
OSG, nice breakdown of you editing process. Appreciate the insight.

Hope everyone is doing good. This month kind of got away from me on the writing front. Not a complete wash, but certainly nothing to be proud of. I'll have to try to make up some time in the second half of the year.
 

onesecondglance

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Well, going through these individual words is taking longer than planned, but longer than planned is standard by now so I can't complain. I worked up some stats to try and motivate myself, and I can see I'm more than halfway there with this phase. Among other highlights, I have 40% fewer "looks", 36% fewer shakes and shooks, and 13% fewer buts (though no change in the number of butts). Tomorrow is semicolons and ellipses. Fun!

:e2cheer:
Hang in there, Zan. Sometimes life happens. I'm sure you'll catch up to where you want to.
Good work on the poetry, Saoirse, and glad to hear about the migraines and the extra job.
:e2cheer: