Tuesday, January 31, 2012

"Rewriting is a misnomer.

I know some of you are thinking -- "rewriting" a book in 12 days?

But what I'm trying to do here is come up with a "reading" copy; which means that continuity is the most important aspect.

The "rewriting" is a misnomer. Actually, it's more that I'm reading the book and making corrections. Significant corrections, but not actually rewriting the whole book.

I write a book in parts. All the parts could work but the whole be unreadable. So I want to try to read it how a reader would read it.

If I have time at the end, I may read the whole thing out loud to myself. I find that I will often read it slightly differently than what's on the page and what I read aloud is almost always an improvement, like my subconscious has a better choice.


I got another 4 chapters done, but I suspect I might be slowing down, because the later chapters probably need more work. Arrggh.

Anyone who thinks that one should write a book simply for the "fun" of it, has never written a book or is kidding themselves. By kidding themselves, I suspect they secretly or not secretly harbor the wish that the book will be published, make tons of money, and be covered in glory.

Writing a blog is "fun."

Writing a book takes time and energy. There are fun aspects in the process, but actually finishing a book -- to me -- becomes a little less fun. There is a great sense of accomplishment, though.

The fourth chapter needs some additional material -- so I'm hoping I can write that before I start doing the next 4 chapters.

1 comment:

Duncan McGeary said...

It's not really just editing, either, because there is quite a bit of adding and subtracting.

Editing - - interesting concept.

In this modern world, so much of that is done already.