Avi

word craft

blog

For the 80th time …

Revised stampBack on Feb­ru­ary 19, 2019, I post­ed a note about my dif­fi­cul­ties with a book on which I was work­ing. It was some­thing of a pep-talk to me, try­ing find ways of push­ing on. Now, I have the first full draft of the book—which is to say the eighty some­thing drafts of the book. In fact, I real­ly don’t know how many times I have re-writ­ten it. Some­times I rewrote because it was inept. Some­times I rewrote because I shift­ed the plot. Or added to the plot. Or dis­cov­ered a hole in the plot. Or just to make it bet­ter. Or was con­tin­u­al­ly bugged by a word in that sec­ond sen­tence of Chap­ter One.

I informed my edi­tor I had a draft of the book. True, but not true, because I con­tin­ued to work.

I ran the text through my Word spell and gram­mar check­er. I ran it through Gram­marly. (They point out dif­fer­ent things.) Such apps don’t catch all my mis­takes (spelling, com­mas, dropped words, dou­ble words) but enough to make it worth­while. Eas­i­er to read. All this as I con­tin­ued to rewrite.

I sent the book to a friend who always reads my work and await­ed her crit­i­cism. I sent it to my agent. Her thoughts. Then, I asked my wife if I could read it to her. That I did, over suc­ces­sive nights. “This is good,” she final­ly said, to my enor­mous relief because she is a very tough crit­ic. (Trust me: She has not always said “good.”) From time to time she would say, “Wait……. Didn’t you…?.” and she would point out a mis­step, a flaw, a problem.

Most impor­tant­ly, as I read, I noticed things to change, add, cut. Here a sen­tence. There a para­graph. Put some­thing in. Take some­thing out. Most impor­tant of all, gaps in log­ic, missed con­nec­tions, bet­ter ways to tell the tale, bet­ter words. Rewrite…rewrite…….

Then back over the whole book. Change the font. Change col­or of the screen. Mar­gins. Any­thing to let me see the book anew. Rewrite, rewrite……….

And always, always, always, I find things that can be bet­tered. Sure, I tell myself, no per­fect book, but still, how did I miss that? Wait a minute; doesn’t this char­ac­ter need to…………

In a cou­ple of weeks I’ll send the man­u­script to my pub­lish­er. Ner­vous­ly. Changes will always be request­ed. Back to work. Will it be pub­lished? Stay in touch………

Oh, by the way: it’s my next year’s income………….

2 thoughts on “For the 80th time …”

  1. So help­ful to hear this — both the meth­ods you use to see the man­u­script anew and the actu­al work/persistence it takes to mak­ing the sto­ry the best it can be. (I love that your wife’s response is so hon­est and spot-on. Your friend sounds like a trea­sure, too.)

    Reply
  2. Shar­ing yet anoth­er one with my Writer’s Lab. This will res­onate strong­ly, since we began peer-to-peer cri­tiques in the last week or two.
    Your guid­ance and con­ver­sa­tion was the top­ic of dis­cus­sion for sev­er­al sub­se­quent meet­ings. WWAD “What would Avi do” has­n’t quite made a for­mal appear­ance, but it’s a ques­tion we are begin­ning to ask our­selves as we write.
    Thank you, again. Espe­cial­ly as we near Christ­mas, we are becom­ing increas­ing grate­ful for the gift of your time with us!

    Best regards and Mer­ry Christ­mas to you and your family!
    May your Hap­py New Year start with a nice pay­check for your recent efforts!

    ~ Karl Ubelhoer
    Tuck­er­ton Ele­men­tary School, NJ

    Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.