{"id":41360,"date":"2023-08-14T06:30:44","date_gmt":"2023-08-13T18:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=41360"},"modified":"2023-08-12T15:42:05","modified_gmt":"2023-08-12T03:42:05","slug":"its-revision-update-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2023\/08\/14\/its-revision-update-time\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Revision Update Time!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The-Chaos-Gate-The-Wall-Of-Night-Book-Four\"

Update time!<\/p><\/div>\n

Welp, to paraphrase an Aragorn \/\u00a0 LoTR meme from forever ago (see The Very Secret Diary of Aragorn, Son of Arathorn<\/a> \ud83d\ude00 ) the short version of the revision update is, “Still not done. … Not done yet.”<\/em><\/p>\n

While we could leave it there, I thought you might be interested to know that I have divvied the revision up into seven (7) main tasks. Although not necessarily of equal size, in the past three (3) months I have completed two of them. (Hurrah for Team Revision — that’s me, myself, and I, just by the way. \ud83d\ude09 )<\/p>\n

Task 2 was one of those I thought might be shorter. I even dared tell the inestimable Kate, WALL series editor, that I thought it would be straightforward. Ha! Talk about leaving oneself open to those cantankerous and contrary muses!<\/p>\n

In fact, it involved the painstaking unpicking of a whole section (think of it like a patchwork quilt) and restitching the pieces together in an alternate configuration. A much better one, I have to say, but there may have been curses and gnashing of teeth in the process… (I couldn’t possibly confirm or deny, of course.)<\/p>\n

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Now, I’m on to 3 and 4, which although not completely joined at the hip do largely go together and form a large part of the first half of the book.<\/p>\n

However, before I leap in, I’ll be reading the whole shebang through, warts and all, from go to whoa. This is something I always do, usually as the first revision task, but in this case Tasks 1 and 2 were both in the last section, which I wanted to get to grips with while it was still fresh from completing that go-to-whoa narrative<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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“I know” — tangible manuscripts!<\/p><\/div>\n

I always read in printout form, too, for a number of reasons. No, it’s not just to show you all that there really is<\/em> a manuscript, although that’s undoubtedly a collateral benefit. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

The main reason is to gauge the overall flow of the narrative, so although I can annotate the manuscript (ms) with suggested editorial and structural changes, the printout encourages me to keep reading — and I absolutely cannot make any changes to the electronic ms until I’ve read the whole.<\/p>\n

Eschewing the electronic ms for read-through purposes also mitigates against endless reworking of a single sentence, or worse, a solitary mot juste —<\/em> as well as providing a fresh lens on how it’s all really working. And yep, I really do find text can read differently from screen to page, just as speaking it aloud can also be very helpful in spotting and resolving redundancy and other infelicities.<\/p>\n

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Photo credit: Marisa Taylor<\/p><\/div>\n

So that’s the next task, and although the muses always have the last say, I am hoping it will prove something of a “great leap forward”, revision-wise. I’m also excited to have reached this stage and am really looking forward to settling down with those printouts. (With some coloured pens handy, as I’m pretty sure they’ll be needed — they always have been with the other books!)<\/p>\n

So-o, although like Aragorn, Son of Arathorn, I’m “not King—or done—yet”, I am deep in “making it so.” (I know, I know, mixing my genre classic metaphors, but one of the things I’ve always loved about the specfic genre is that it’s so mash-able—and always funworthy. \ud83d\ude00 )<\/p>\n

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He’s wearing the “White Tree” vambraces — but “not king yet” \ud83d\ude00<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ll be back in three (3) months, if not sooner, to let you know whether the “great leap forward” has panned out. All digits pretzelled it’s not a “fall flat on my face” (or worse, sword) experience!<\/p>\n

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Speaks for itself, really… \ud83d\ude09<\/p><\/div>\n

Speaking of Read Throughs…<\/span><\/h3>\n

You know there’s a dedicated Facebook group by and for The Wall Of Night<\/a> series’ readers, right? If you don’t and want to find out more, or need a refresher, you can check out details here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The group is independent of me, although I love to support their endeavours, but they’ve recently let me know that — heartened by my completing the go-to-whoa narrative — there’s to be a Great Reread and Read Along of WALL #1 to #3.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I’ll be posting details on Thursday, for any and all who’re interested.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Welp, to paraphrase an Aragorn \/\u00a0 LoTR meme from forever ago (see The Very Secret Diary of Aragorn, Son of Arathorn \ud83d\ude00 ) the short version of the revision update is, “Still not done. … Not done yet.” While we could leave it there, I thought you might be interested to know that I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-what-im-doing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41360","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=41360"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41378,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41360\/revisions\/41378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}