More on redrafting

[desperance]

Usually, I try to keep a one-track mind when I'm reworking something; I read it through and make notes, beginning to end, and then I bring it to the computer and go back to the beginning and work it through again.

Right now, though, I have to rework a thousand pages in a month, and I can only do so much of either of those processes in a day, before I crack up completely. So I'm doing both at once: yesterday evening I brought the day's reading to the machine and began to work through it.

And of course the latter is slower than the former, by a distance. Computer-wise, I may just reach the end of yesterday's reading by the end of today, but I won't get on to today's reading till tomorrow. And so on: what I have read will work itself further and further ahead of where I am with the rewriting.

Which means that I'm having to keep two separate tracks live in my head at once. Except of course that they're not actually separate, it's just that one car is significantly ahead of the other on the same route. It's okay at the moment, but by the time I hit the middle of the book, I just know I'm going to be muddling up the timelines, thinking "Hang on, hasn't he answered this question already? Oh - no. I read the answer yesterday, but I haven't got there yet..." and so on. I am not mad, but I could learn to be.

In other news, I am making a sort of bubble-and-squeak steak hash for dinner tonight, with Many Root Vegetables (potatoes, celeriac, turnip, carrot...) and I cannot find my masher. I have my ricer, but I want more texture than that allows. I can use a fork, or the back of a spoon, but I really wanted it better mashed than that; in short, I want my masher. And I cannot find it. How anyone can lose a big masher with a bright orange handle in a tiny corridor of a kitchen, I am not clear, but I have. [NB - anyone making comments that begin "Chaz, we've seen your kitchen," may leave the premises forthwith.]

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

[NB - anyone making comments that begin "Chaz, we've seen your kitchen," may leave the premises forthwith.]

Heh, my first instinct would be to blame the cats, whether or not I'd seen your kitchen!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ooh, d'you think? Is it prey, have they dragged it off to slay and butcher it in privacy...?

This I can live with. It's the self-contempt, the certainty that I myself have done another stupid thing, that I find hard.

[julesjones]

At least you do not have "walked into a door" to live with as today's humiliatingly stupid thing to have done...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ouchie! I walked into a tree one time. Wretched thing just leaped out in front of me, officer...

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Were single malts involved in some way?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Nah, it was before my career as a drinker really took off. I don't count accidents-under-the-influence - but then, I don't need to. I have plenty enough when I'm sober. I am the Boy Who Fell Down The Louvre, me...

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one who connected this morning to the main page of this blog to discover all the messages replaced by the stern announcement: "You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults"? And that, after encountering a page where I've been asked to certify I'm above 18 years of age. What an annoying new feature.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, what? I was just reading about this on my friends page, but I had no idea I'd been tagged. And, uh, what on earth for...?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

PS - I have gone and kicked shit a bit, and it may now be sorted - could you check in again and see? 'Cos obviously I see nothing, either way...

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thanks, seems back to normal. Can't see why it was the way it was earlier on. Nothing staggeringly improper comes to mind. And all that screening nonsense was rather cumbersome, to boot! But was I the only one inconvenienced?