The Second Worst Part of Writing

The night before last, I had a dream of climbing a mountain. Near the top, where it was icy and rocky, I was attacked by wolves. They chased me up a tall pile of rocks. I clung to the top while they snarled below, snapping at my feet. Then last night, I dreamt I was chased into a mausoleum by cannibals. Again with teeth-gnashing and ankle-snapping.

On a completely related note, I've been scrambling to finish my edits for Taboo. (While also writing the first draft of a research paper for school.)

I love most parts of writing. This particular stage of edits, though, is, shall we say, not my favorite part of the job. These are the kinds of corrections that my editor can find, but only I can correct. My editor can correct the mistake where I've accidentally used "to" instead of "too" or forgotten the second 'had' in the past perfect tense. But what if I've said in one part of the scene that it's late at night, but later refer to the position of the sun in the sky? I'm the one who has to make up my mind whether it's day or night!

The real reason I hate this stage though is that never does my own wordage appear so ugly to me as when I am trying to polish it. Every sentence emits the foul odor of cliche, unclarity, or just plain blah-bland-yuck. Would I actually, factually prefer to scrub dishes?

Well, let's not go THAT far.

The good news is that at least the edits are almost done, and Taboo WILL be available this month, probably next week, depending on how long formatting and uploading and review in Amazon takes. And Nook users, I will not forget you.

Ugh. Edits. Sorry for the rant.

Comments

The Happy Whisk said…
Sorry it's going roughly for you.
Aurora Smith said…
im so glad im not an editor. it would be the worst job EVA!
TheSFReader said…
Oh, some people LIKE actually to edit. It's NOT my case either.
Yeah for the forthcoming book ...
My "ToBeRead" pile is getting crowded though...
The Happy Whisk said…
TheSFReader: I am one of those people who love it. All of it.
Tara Maya said…
I'm very glad there are people who love editing. :D
Ban said…
GRIEF!!! Somehow your blog got taken off my dashboard so I wasn't getting updates ... I thought you'd taken another long hiatus and now I find out the first book of the Dindi series is out in print?!?!? Holy Stinkin' Cow - CONGRATULATIONS!!! And now I'm off to Amazon to get my copy. (And tell the other members of the now defunct Beta Bloggers so they can get their copy :)
Tara Maya said…
Ban! So good to hear from you!
Janet said…
Followed ban over from my blog after she told me about your success, Tara - huge congrats on the publication of The Unfinished Song. I'll have to take some time this weekend and play catch up over here :)

Oh, BTW - hate editing! Tell me, what's wrong with first drafts ;)
Tara Maya said…
Thanks, Janet!

This is actually even worse than a first draft. It's a seventieth draft or something. Honestly, I'm so sick of my own work after going over and over it, it amazes me anyone would consent to read it, never mind pay to read it. But I think this is a common author affliction. :p
I know just what you mean. I don't have any problem with going over the prose time and again, but ask me to set the timeline in stone or pick a specific day/month/year for the start of the story and my eyes glaze over and I want to do something else. I have no idea what that's all about. Managing internal consistency (I think movie folks call this "continuity") is not my favorite task.