I'm old and all, and time moves faster for me, but even to a late middle aged broad that's a noticeable time gap. The excuse that I am not actively querying, as I work on revisions, too would carry a LOT more weight if I were working in a more focused way - but, even with wonderfully clear critique and suggestions, actually putting those into force has been a difficult job for me for some reason. I understand the direction, but the object I must apply them to is just so BIG (it's a lot of book, and cutting it down is in fact one of the things I need to work on ... but only ONE) I lose sight of exactly where to work. I know I need to cut the subplot with the bastard brother. I know the rape thread needs work ... but what work? I know the loquatiousness needs to come down a number of notches, and in fact THAT is the one thing I have had the easiest time with. Tightening bolt by bolt comes easily for me, and cutting only feels good, not bad to me.
But I can't work the entirety of revisions by actually reading this thing, and taking minutiae apart, cutting it down sentence by sentence - moving microscopically, beginning to end. It's got to be necessary to see this thing as a whole and find ELEMENTS - not mere paragraphs or pages - which need work, or surgery to delete them cleanly. And I just can't see the whole novel. It isn't possible to stand far enough back ... AND wield the nippers to cut it down, from that distance.
I'm not smart enough to have learned, yet, how to stand back from something, to see it, and to be IN it, working on it, at the same time.
Advice and observations always welcome. In the meantime, the work is not going well - unfocused, and unguided. And so slow.
I have a feeling this weekend will prove far less celebratory of the advent of cable in my home, than it will (I hope) provide opportunity and motivation to at least find ONE aspect of Ax to get into more substantially.
I hope. We shall see.
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