As I previously mentioned, I have been hard at work on the second
edit of my book. I've made a lot of progress since the new year. I've
found doing a little bit at a time really does add up to large
chunks of accomplishment. It feels good to look at my Post-it bookmark
and see it slowly but surely (and consistently) moving toward the end of
my black binder.
Throughout the course of my book, I chronicle my encounters with hipsters, douchebags, bitches, sluts, tweakers, and kimono wearing opera singers. And I talked about how much they, and my classes, sucked. And to be fair, I talked about how much I sucked as well. You'd think after reading about that much sucking, the reader would come out a little more satisfied, eh?
I already had a suspicion I should reel back on the reaming of others but after going over the book again and again, all the constant complaining is unappetizing. So, I cut out a lot of the negativity in regards to other people and even myself. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of self-loathing (it wouldn't be Bran's book without one) but I have definitely scaled back on the bad attitude.
I've also cut out a lot of repetition. I used my blog as a reference while writing my book and the way I wrote my entries was I often gave a lot of back story and repeated information for new readers who had just come upon my blog, allowing them to catch up on the happenings before they dived into a new entry. But all that extra information doesn't translate well to a book because it's one reader, not a slew of people coming and going. Once I've established all the info to that one reader, there's no need to rehash any of it. Taking all that excess background noise has helped lighten the book considerably. Or at least I hope. I look through all my pages and most of the text is crossed out. I've got at least 89 pages to cut so getting rid of the repetition and cutting out all nonessential information and some of the negativity will help me do that.
I know I keep on droning on about this stupid project and hardly seem like I'm making progress but since it's my first book, I want it to be as good as it can be. Plus, I think all the time I've sat on it and waited and developed my writing skills has made the book stronger than it's ever been. That's not to say it's even good at this point but it's miles ahead of where it was a year ago so I don't feel bad about not rushing it into publication.
I do want to have it published this year, though.
Throughout the course of my book, I chronicle my encounters with hipsters, douchebags, bitches, sluts, tweakers, and kimono wearing opera singers. And I talked about how much they, and my classes, sucked. And to be fair, I talked about how much I sucked as well. You'd think after reading about that much sucking, the reader would come out a little more satisfied, eh?
I already had a suspicion I should reel back on the reaming of others but after going over the book again and again, all the constant complaining is unappetizing. So, I cut out a lot of the negativity in regards to other people and even myself. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of self-loathing (it wouldn't be Bran's book without one) but I have definitely scaled back on the bad attitude.
I've also cut out a lot of repetition. I used my blog as a reference while writing my book and the way I wrote my entries was I often gave a lot of back story and repeated information for new readers who had just come upon my blog, allowing them to catch up on the happenings before they dived into a new entry. But all that extra information doesn't translate well to a book because it's one reader, not a slew of people coming and going. Once I've established all the info to that one reader, there's no need to rehash any of it. Taking all that excess background noise has helped lighten the book considerably. Or at least I hope. I look through all my pages and most of the text is crossed out. I've got at least 89 pages to cut so getting rid of the repetition and cutting out all nonessential information and some of the negativity will help me do that.
I know I keep on droning on about this stupid project and hardly seem like I'm making progress but since it's my first book, I want it to be as good as it can be. Plus, I think all the time I've sat on it and waited and developed my writing skills has made the book stronger than it's ever been. That's not to say it's even good at this point but it's miles ahead of where it was a year ago so I don't feel bad about not rushing it into publication.
I do want to have it published this year, though.
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