the art of editing

M’kay, I was quite proud of myself for finally getting back into Robert & Allison’s story and doing some cosmetic revisions way back on the 19th… then I got hooked into watching all four seasons of Wentworth because the new season came out and I re-watched the preceding three seasons because I couldn’t recall the story arc well enough. And I honestly did finish the new research I mentioned, too… and then, like I said, got hooked on the telly! Argh!

I honestly don’t mind editing, although acknowledge it can be a pain in the arse as well. I also admit I still make some grammar errors as well as over use comma’s. That’s likely the biggest area I edit. I still miss Mom & Don’s editing skills – they not only pointed out the grammar and spelling issues, but offered revisionary-type stuff, as well, that sometimes changed the story arc and almost always improved the story. Which is why I periodically mention my intention to find a writing/critiquing group to join. I still intend to find and join one.

Previously when I edited a piece, I color-coded everything. I changed the font color for whatever I changed during an edit to make it easier to find changes… back when I did all of my writing in Word, that is. Now that I’m finally exclusively using Scrivener for my writing, I simply make the changes. And, if the changes are somewhat huge, I save the changed copy with a different name so I have both versions available to compare. I’m sure there are better ways to go about this, or more efficient, or more detailed, or whatever….

I mentioned I finally backed off on my Sim City BuildIt addiction, and I haven’t logged onto the Herding Dogs game for (I think) about two weeks now. I finished Wentworth two days ago and planned on getting back to Robert & Allison and was kind of hit with a comedy of errors-type thing… apparently, the port connection for my Internet service was failing. I had noticed my net and TV connection was acting up a bit, but honestly, it wasn’t enough for me to complain, just more of an irritation. There have been some heavy thunderstorms rolling through that have been sending Stevie into panic mode, which makes it difficult to sit and write or concentrate on anything other than her. So, two days ago after watching the final episode of season four, Wentworth – following an all-night binge of watching, sans sleep, I figured I’d catch a couple hours sleep then awake refreshed enough to get back to writing. Ha! I couldn’t fall asleep; I realized I was almost out of cigarettes so decided to hit Starbucks and get my smokes, then go to sleep.  I heard some rolling thunder moving in and saw Stevie going into full-on panic/idiot/moron mode, but crated the girls so I could get my running out of the way. For some weird reason I didn’t turn the TV on for the girls before I left. I typically leave the telly on so they can hear something, whether it’s music or a TV show. But, I didn’t bother to turn the TV back on after finishing my show and took off. Was only gone for 20-30 minutes, or so. Decided to check my email before trying to sleep and kept getting an error message… that’s how I found out my modem was fried. I did all of the testing via the AT&T tools and diagnosed the problem, then used the chat feature to have the tech’s do their official diagnosis – and was scheduled for a repairman to arrive, yesterday. He came, agreed with my diagnosis, switched out modem’s – and still had connection issues. That’s when we discovered the port issue. So he left and did those repairs; came back and finished up here, and right as he was walking out of the door, another issue popped up which hinted at the DVR/uVerse box going bad! *sighs* So he switched that out with a new, smaller one – fits even better in the allocated spot than the previous one did, but said these newer boxes can be quite slow to start up. Naturally, mine appears to be one of the slower ones. But hey, it works.

So, no writing for awhile again, but my ‘net is fixed, TV is working fine, bills for the month either paid or payments scheduled, do have to run to the store to pick up a few grocery items and once again my sleep-schedule is fubar’ed (fucked up beyond all recognition), as in, I was reading last night and unexpectedly fell asleep around midnight, woke at 4:30 this morning and ‘just’ finished my last cup of coffee from the pot. I know, none of this really has jackshit to do with editing, k? Guess my brain is scattered from sleep deprivation – among other things. Any-hoo, I am so outtie….