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That was a morning's work, that was. And look, I've worked my way through ... oh, all of twenty pages. Sigh...
In part it's just mechanically slower, doing this on the laptop: ducking and diving to and fro, back and forth, highlighting and deleting and substituting with a mini-mouse and a tight keyboard; but only in small part. In large part, it is as ever in my head. Trying to hang on to the big picture and the immediate scene while I chew over every word individually and in its place, in its context. Some writers go through a manuscript several times, I know, reading for different things at every pass, but not me: I'm looking for cuts and inconsistencies and infelicities, for rhythm and reach and depth, for story and for storytelling, all at once. And I've been doing it this way thirty-odd years and still, still it surprises me every time, how slowly I progress.
Still. Onward. I need to get this done this week. And I've cut 1200 words out of that first twenty pages, which is neat. Keep that up and the book may actually be its proper length when I first turn it in. Which is unheard of.
In part it's just mechanically slower, doing this on the laptop: ducking and diving to and fro, back and forth, highlighting and deleting and substituting with a mini-mouse and a tight keyboard; but only in small part. In large part, it is as ever in my head. Trying to hang on to the big picture and the immediate scene while I chew over every word individually and in its place, in its context. Some writers go through a manuscript several times, I know, reading for different things at every pass, but not me: I'm looking for cuts and inconsistencies and infelicities, for rhythm and reach and depth, for story and for storytelling, all at once. And I've been doing it this way thirty-odd years and still, still it surprises me every time, how slowly I progress.
Still. Onward. I need to get this done this week. And I've cut 1200 words out of that first twenty pages, which is neat. Keep that up and the book may actually be its proper length when I first turn it in. Which is unheard of.