{"id":28370,"date":"2015-03-05T06:30:23","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T17:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=28370"},"modified":"2015-03-04T22:40:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-04T09:40:27","slug":"pure-endurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/03\/05\/pure-endurance\/","title":{"rendered":"“Pure Endurance”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Back<\/a>

“Pure endurance”<\/p><\/div>\n

Last week, I posted<\/a> that “I\u2019m currently doing my very last read-through of the edited Daughter of Blood manuscript before it goes to production.”\u00a0<\/em> And production, as I also mentioned, will involve both copy editing and then a further proof-reading round.<\/p>\n

Recently, I also received an email from a friend and fellow writer who had just completed the second draft of a novel and was waiting for feedback from beta readers. What she wrote was:<\/p>\n

“…but I’m having trouble\u00a0 motivating myself for ANOTHER set of edits! I don’t know how you do it — to produce three (and I assume the fourth will be no different) novels that are so finely honed. It speaks to a depth of pure endurance.”<\/em><\/p>\n

To which I first thought, “thank you” for that “finely honed.”<\/em>\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Copyedit for “The Gathering Of The Lost”<\/p><\/div>\n

But secondly, just “yes” — because I believe writing is<\/em> an endurance event. When you embark on that ‘journey of considerably more than a thousand words’<\/a> you do have to be prepared for the long haul — including being willing to “write and throw away” until you get the story you’re trying to tell something close to right.<\/p>\n

That’s not to say that sometimes I don’t ever get it right the first time, but I do find those occasions are rare. Nor am I alone. American writer William Gass is famous for having claimed to work “not by writing, but rewriting”<\/em>, while Dylan Thomas was of the view that: “Almost any poem is fifty to a hundred revisions \u2014 and that\u2019s after it\u2019s well along.”<\/em><\/p>\n

And the copyediting and proofing still come after<\/em> the writer’s work of creation is done. So yes, “pure endurance” indeed, but so worth it when you finally reach “the end.”<\/p>\n

However, I also think author David Farland has considerable wisdom to offer on when to stop<\/em> polishing a manuscript<\/a> — because it’s equally important to know when that time has come.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, I posted that “I\u2019m currently doing my very last read-through of the edited Daughter of Blood manuscript before it goes to production.”\u00a0 And production, as I also mentioned, will involve both copy editing and then a further proof-reading round. Recently, I also received an email from a friend and fellow writer who had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28370"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28378,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28370\/revisions\/28378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}