Day Twenty-Two

DAY TWENTY-TWO

So I began the seventh chapter today. It feels good to have made this start.

What I like to do at the beginning of every chapter that I'm about to edit is to first go through my editor's notes. The errors that my wife found so I can correct them. This begins the process.

Then I'll move through the entire passage changing the format of what the quotations look like and when the characters think a thought.

For example, when I wrote my first draft, a sentence might look like this:

"Hi Lucy." Sam said. 'Wow, where has she been all day.' She thought.

This now changes to:

'Hi Lucy.' Sam said. Wow, where has she been all day. She thought.

There still are the double quotation marks being used but it would look like this:

Original:

"Hi Lucy." Sam said. 'Wow, where has she been all day.' She thought. "You know you can come say "hi" to me once in a while."

New look:

'Hi Lucy.' Sam said. Wow, where has she been all day. She thought. 'You know you can come say "hi" to me once in a while.'

As you can see, it looks much "cleaner". As Joe Sutter, the "father" of the Boeing 747 would say: "If it feels right, then it's right."

For me, this new visual just makes me feel good about the formatting.

Once all of that is done, I then begin the rest of the changes of that chapter. In this case, the new look is now in place and I'm ready, tomorrow, to begin with the line-by-line changes.

That's what takes the time but when the new chapter is done, it doesn't look anything like the old one and I end up with the kind of story I was hoping to write originally.

Anyway, I just wanted to stop in and let you know where I'm at for the day. I hope you have a great weekend and I'll talk to you some more on Monday!

Mark