“I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.” – Edward Allan Poe
I’ve been on hiatus from my current completed manuscript. In my little world, this is necessary. I need to take a complete break from it and get busy with something else. So busy that I stop thinking about my characters and their narrative. In the meantime, I ask others to review it. But I don’t look at that either.
When I go back for the final edit, I want it to be fresh and new, and to have reviewers’ remarks beside me. All the ingredients go into the pot. That increases objectivity and allows me to logically change things that I may have been lovingly clinging to in the previous version.
This summer, in addition to plotting another novel, I took on a project for the City of Parksville: researching 60 local war veterans who lost their lives during WW1 and WW2. In WW1, most of the men were new Canadians. The challenge was to write each person’s story in fewer than 400 words. Rather like genealogy, the research often had to be puzzled together from bits of random information. It was completely absorbing and I hope I did justice to the men who sacrificed their lives.
Now I’m back to the task of editing. Look for Black Velvet soon!
“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you are inclined to write ‘very’ and your editor will delete it and your writing will be just as it should be.” – Mark Twain
“Vigorous writing is concise.” – William Strunk, Jr.