I’m editing as quickly and as thoroughly as I can. \u00a0It’s painful, exhilarating, exhausting, and reinvigorating, all at different times. \u00a0Tonight, I’ve felt all of those things and more.<\/p>\n
While editing, I find myself wondering how I could have ever shown this story to anyone. \u00a0The story itself is okay, but the writing? \u00a0Why did I use the passive voice so much? \u00a0Was\u00a0I in love with the word “was”?<\/p>\n
As hard as I’m working on this, progress is slow. \u00a0If I didn’t have a full time job, maybe I could get this finished in a few weeks. \u00a0At my current pace, I don’t know when I’ll finish. \u00a0This is the greatest source of frustration for me, and I have to work really hard to avoid getting discouraged.<\/p>\n
I knew the chapter I was going to work on tonight\u00a0would be trouble when I got to it, and it has been. \u00a0The prose needed a lot of work. \u00a0The action needed better pacing. \u00a0The whole thing needed tweaking. \u00a0The whole chapter was a fetid swamp, and I needed it to be a fresh smelling meadow.<\/p>\n
I put my head down and pushed through. \u00a0Parts were replaced. \u00a0Details were enhanced. \u00a0Some sentences became shorter. \u00a0I crafted better metaphors, and found stronger verbs. \u00a0I banished every “was” that I found.<\/p>\n
And now I have a much cleaner chapter that actually fits into story and progresses it the way I intended.<\/p>\n
I’ve talked before about the difference between talent and skill. \u00a0Talent is like raw strength, while skill is the product of work and practice. \u00a0When it comes to playing sax, I have a little bit of talent,\u00a0and enough skill to make\u00a0my talent seem like more than it is. \u00a0I’ve met and played with people that had more talent, but were less skilled. \u00a0And I’ve played with a few people were both more talented AND more skilled. \u00a0Stefan, the musician that subs in for us in RC Swing, fits that category.<\/p>\n
When it comes to writing, I feel like I have more talent than I have skill. \u00a0I have a strong vocabulary, and I can get my ideas across. \u00a0But as I’ve discovered while editing this book, I’m clumsy and bullish. \u00a0There are moments I can be proud of, but those places\u00a0are surrounded by\u00a0amateur efforts that detract from the work as a whole.<\/p>\n
Looking back at what I’ve said so far in this post, I can’t tell if I’m bragging or putting myself down. \u00a0Maybe a little of both. \u00a0What I want to say is that tonight, I’ve seen myself grow as a writer. \u00a0I feel like\u00a0I’m starting to really hone my skills.<\/p>\n
I still have a long ways to go, but I’m going to get there. \u00a0I’m still moving along, one word at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m editing as quickly and as thoroughly as I can. \u00a0It’s painful, exhilarating, exhausting, and reinvigorating, all at different times. \u00a0Tonight, I’ve felt all of those things and more. While editing, I find myself wondering how I could have ever shown this story to anyone. \u00a0The story itself is okay, but the writing? \u00a0Why did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}