Just survived the boys' 9th birthday, and managed to squeeze in a few more pages on the YA book. Liz's party comes day after tomorrow, mine in a month and change, leaving the holiday skies clear for a while after that.
Read the boys more of the book tonight and boy was that painful, not as much for them I suspect as me. The difference in writing/reading was significant, the second section being much fatter, more redundant, talky, and inexcusably sloppy. Amazing what difference a little editing and proof-reading makes!
The main difference I have noticed between these writing sessions is that I am writing both more and faster, which means I am being less selective/conscious in my thought process. What's more, with these last posts I had neither edited nor even re-read the work prior to posting.
This leads me to ask, is this the place to worry about the quality of editing, since really I am only starting my first draft with its simple completion the first and foremost goal? Or do I owe more to my projected audience (for that is what this blog provides), and should at least have a competency pass before posting.
Though I would normally believe the first, I think I'm going to err on the side of the second. If I am not conscienciously preparing my work for an audience to read (like my kids) then I don't get the full psychological benefit of the blog and I might as well just be writing for myself again which brings me dangerously back to a lack of obligation.
It's also just good practice to be mindful of what I am writing in the act of writing, in the effort to be more deliberate, concise, and economic. The difference between the two methods can be compared to something like switching from film to digital photography, where digitally the subject can be shot a million times and out of pure statistics, at least one half-way decent picture can be found among them. The finiteness of film on the other hand demands the right picture be set up from the get go.
Not sure I am making any sense tonight. My eyes are blazingly tired and the old brain is shutting off now, synapse by synapse, like a power grid going down in a black out. Time for sleep.
Hopefully my future writing posts will read tighter and cleaner.
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