REvisions, reVISIONs, revisionS, REVISIONS

Cape Cod Weather Today: Dark, as I'm writing at night. But earlier in the day it was sunny and blue-skies, with a chill wind across the ocean that made it hard to walk through the sand and not lose one's breath. Somehow I managed. *grin*


The (hopefully) last round of revisions arrived in my inbox last week, on the same day that my parents arrived for a holiday visit, and at the same time as my eldest son's stage debut. All good things come in threes, right?

The production of THE BFG went wonderfully, my son remembered all of his lines and costume changes and looked like the consummate acting professional up there. I was so proud! My parents had a nice visit with their grandkids and with my sisters and myself, went to see the play twice and had fun watching the Easter Egg Hunt. They left, back to Georgia where the weather is much nicer, my dad repeatedly assures me.

And the revisions.

I've been working on them nonstop for the last two days, and made lots of headway. My editor assured me they were "light" and easy, but there were a couple of stumpers thrown in there. I mean, a few things just needed to be cleaned up from past rounds of changes ("why are we referring to her when she isn't even in the conversation?"... "Because we just took her out last round, oops"... or "I thought the funeral was supposed to be later in the week?" oops...)

And okay, so I overused the word "shimmering" in describing the spirit manifestations, but we couldn't have picked up on that back in November? This is a final round thing? Argh.

Thesaurus-dot-com is my new best friend.

I feel a little battered (thus the broken dune fence pictured above) but I know the book will be the best it can be when all is said and done... and revised.

I need to read through the whole work once or twice more to check for consistency, and spot any more epithets that I can remove... did you know epithet doesn't only refer to derogatory descriptions? I always linked the word with curses, mostly the f-word type, but apparently referring to someone by stereotype or adjective/job description combos ("the redheaded doctor", "the ace reporter", etc.) can also be referred to as an epithet, as in "cut down on the use of epithets, Katie." I didn't remember calling anyone an f-ing anything, so I had to look up the proper definition. I love to learn new things. Dictionary-dot-com is another close friend of mine.

Going through the manuscript tonight, I'd forgotten some of the previous revisions we'd made and was reading through going "Wow, this sounds really good! Did I really write this?" Such a strange feeling, to know it's mine and yet it feels all shiny and new. Is this just me and my swiss-cheese overworked brain, or do all authors go through these phases of not recognizing their own words?

Here's hoping I can finish it all by the end of the week, because spring break starts Friday, and I know I won't get anything accomplished with all three kids home all the time. PLUS, the sooner I can finish this round, the sooner it goes to the line editor and the sooner I get my release date!

*yea*