[August 4th] Back to the Editing Board

"My, my, my, how dusty you are, Miss Typewriter!"

With July slaughtered and rotting in my basement, where authorities will never think to look, I now have free reign to kick ass during August. As I pass through my August rebirth, I have decided that now is the time to add some homemade deadlines to the mix. Which brings me back to “Crimson Cacophony,” which lays one editing away from being ready to sent to my beta readers.

My stance on editing varies. Sometimes I love the power to remodel a story, seeing it grow stronger. In the cases I don’t know quite what the story needs, I despise editing and revising. More often than not, I dislike it. Why? First, I always seek the thrill of the new. New worlds, new magic, new fucked up characters. I’m a follower of the Shiny. Second, I have a terrible long term memory. I will write up half a novel and then forget what I wrote in the beginning, which is the primary reason why most of my novels collapse in on themselves.

The creation of a coherent plot demands me dashing to and fro between chapters like rocket propelled pendulum, which is nigh intolerable as I hate treading on the same idea, same piece of writing, same moments. Déjà vu and I are not besties. Considering that last time I edited “Crimson Cacophony” I had to pretty much make sure that the book I wrote doesn’t read like a psycho off his meds, I didn’t look forward to spending more time editing.

Yet, here I am, digital red in my mouse-wielding hand, and ready for action. This time it’s a very different sensation. I think that according to Chuck Wendig’s cake analogy I should be entering the glazing phase; what I mean is that I know the novel [a feat with my inability to even remember my cell number] and I know what it needs [apart from a publishing deal]. It needs fine tuning to the beginning and middle, then expansion of the ending, which I have rushed a lot.

Fort the particular purpose of keeping all the subplots in check, not that there are that many, but I want to ensure that consistency is maintained at all times, I’ve finally charted an Excel table to see which chapter deals with which subplots. The act of rereading each chapter and then dissecting and arranging the bits in the correct cells, give me ideas of how to weld each chapter to the following. I know that charting chapters in Excel tables is what occurs during plotting, but I’m not a plotter. I can only plot when I have a misshapen thing of a novel, with moments of awesome, which have to be stitched together. I’m almost halfway through this reading and charting. My deadline is August 10.

Then from August 11th until August 31st I will apply all the necessary changes and stretch out the ending chapters. Can it be done? Why yes, I’ve seen people complete two thirds of a book in that time. I’m positive that dealing a final editing can be achieved for that time period.

So what are your plans for August?