Back to Normal Life
The DI articles are edited, re-edited and away. The deadline was midnight last night, and everything I had a hand in was done by at least twenty-four hours ahead of time. I'm fairly pleased with how everything came out - certainly much happier with this version of the pituitary article than I was with what was with the original site-copy.
So I'm back to two major projects at this point. The first is the (nearly perpetual) Ghost Dancer edit. I think part of what's slowing this edit up is that it's largely a structural level edit, and that's not something I have any experience with, nor something I've been able to find much advice on. Scene and sentence level editing I wasn't very good at when I first finished Ghost Dancer - the unfortunate by-product of being a good enough writer that virtually none of my school papers or stories needed editing beyond a spell-check to get good grades. However, there's a ton of information available out there on that kind of editing, plus a number of writers who comment on such things on their blogs. (I highly recommend matiociquala of They Must Need Bears - aka Elizabeth Bear for her discussions of sentence-level work). Using the references and working away scene by scene, I feel like I've gotten to be a much better editor at this phase of things.
Structural level editing, on the other hand, seems to have a dearth of information out there. I'm adding a largish sub-plot to Ghost Dancer, and I keep hitting decisions about which scenes need to go where, how to fit a new character into existing scenes, which bits of subplot really deserve their own scenes, versus a side-mention elsewhere, and so on. And I really don't have a clue how to make these decisions other than trial and error. I'm sure I'd be even more stuck if I hadn't moved my novel file over to Write Way some time back. Write Way has drag and drop scene shifting abilities, which makes me much more willing to just stuff a scene in to see if it works.
I'm almost through the first third (Kira at Jamison Training Base). Once I finish that, which means about two more scenes, there's very little in the middle third that needs alteration. The final third, though, needs major revamping to bring it into line with the new beginning. It should be a big improvement when it's done, but it's a little daunting to contemplate. I'm trying hard to get it done before NaNo, because I have got to get done with the endless revamps and actually start trying to sell this thing.
The other major project is for my sensei, though he doesn't know it. I'm writing up an Isshinryu syllabus. Every kata in detail. Every self-defense sequence. A Japanese/English glossary of required terms. Possibly write-ups of individual moves, with commentary on points of technique. Bunkai (usage explanations) for the kata. Anything and everything I think I would want to recall about my Isshinryu knowledge if I were struck with amnesia and wanted to learn it all again. Plus my three required black belt essays. Right now this is easier going than Ghost Dancer because I'm simply collecting individual stuff as I think of it. I haven't had to make structural decisions, nor write up analysis yet. As I get the kata, self-defense, and other more descriptive stuff down, I'll inevitably start hitting more subjective writing and I expect I'll slow down. I'm excited to see how it comes out, though.
So I'm back to two major projects at this point. The first is the (nearly perpetual) Ghost Dancer edit. I think part of what's slowing this edit up is that it's largely a structural level edit, and that's not something I have any experience with, nor something I've been able to find much advice on. Scene and sentence level editing I wasn't very good at when I first finished Ghost Dancer - the unfortunate by-product of being a good enough writer that virtually none of my school papers or stories needed editing beyond a spell-check to get good grades. However, there's a ton of information available out there on that kind of editing, plus a number of writers who comment on such things on their blogs. (I highly recommend matiociquala of They Must Need Bears - aka Elizabeth Bear for her discussions of sentence-level work). Using the references and working away scene by scene, I feel like I've gotten to be a much better editor at this phase of things.
Structural level editing, on the other hand, seems to have a dearth of information out there. I'm adding a largish sub-plot to Ghost Dancer, and I keep hitting decisions about which scenes need to go where, how to fit a new character into existing scenes, which bits of subplot really deserve their own scenes, versus a side-mention elsewhere, and so on. And I really don't have a clue how to make these decisions other than trial and error. I'm sure I'd be even more stuck if I hadn't moved my novel file over to Write Way some time back. Write Way has drag and drop scene shifting abilities, which makes me much more willing to just stuff a scene in to see if it works.
I'm almost through the first third (Kira at Jamison Training Base). Once I finish that, which means about two more scenes, there's very little in the middle third that needs alteration. The final third, though, needs major revamping to bring it into line with the new beginning. It should be a big improvement when it's done, but it's a little daunting to contemplate. I'm trying hard to get it done before NaNo, because I have got to get done with the endless revamps and actually start trying to sell this thing.
The other major project is for my sensei, though he doesn't know it. I'm writing up an Isshinryu syllabus. Every kata in detail. Every self-defense sequence. A Japanese/English glossary of required terms. Possibly write-ups of individual moves, with commentary on points of technique. Bunkai (usage explanations) for the kata. Anything and everything I think I would want to recall about my Isshinryu knowledge if I were struck with amnesia and wanted to learn it all again. Plus my three required black belt essays. Right now this is easier going than Ghost Dancer because I'm simply collecting individual stuff as I think of it. I haven't had to make structural decisions, nor write up analysis yet. As I get the kata, self-defense, and other more descriptive stuff down, I'll inevitably start hitting more subjective writing and I expect I'll slow down. I'm excited to see how it comes out, though.