Slacking Off

An article by Karen    No Comments

There are reasons, well, excuses, why I haven’t been doing my edit. However, this morning I woke up and I promised myself that I would do some editing today. After four hours of scanning old photos for my family tree, I turned my mind to Cat’s Eyes.

Last weekend, I merged chapters 1 and 2. Today, I worked through chapter 3 (which is now chapter 2, but I’ll talk in the old chapters so that we don’t get confused). This evening, I’ll turn my attention to chapter 4.

So far, I’ve found that all the critters agreed on most things. There are a few comments that leave me wondering if people do read the words presented to them, because I had one person complain that they didn’t know how old my main character is, yet her age is given in the second paragraph and again later in the chapter. And I had someone else say that I’ve obviously never seen two cats fight, yet I’m describing how my two cats fight and they are the real life Sophie and Jasper. Admittedly, I was a little annoyed at that last comment, but I got over it fast enough.

During this edit, I’ve discovered that a few words can make a big difference to the meaning of a sentence. I found that a confusing sentence (to the reader) only required a word or two added to clarify the situation. This means that the edit has been much easier than I thought it would be. Passive sentences are my weakness. I’m well aware of that and I’m trying to do something about it. Spotting the offensive sentences is hard work (for me), but I’m getting there.

Finally, I need to step up this editing phase. I’ve become complacent and I see this as a vise.