Skip to main content

New for 2008 -- Saturday Night Rewrites

It all started when one of the other writers in my office left last November. I may have gotten taken advantage of with what seemed like a disproportionate amount or his work dumped on me (temporarily, I hope). Anyway, so I found myself one weekend knowing that a major project I had picked up needed an index, and needed it soon because who knew when the thing was going to product release (still any day now). So one Friday evening I backed up the entire manual onto a thumb drive and brought it home to work on during the weekend.

This was actually a watershed moment for me. I had six hours in my weekend, every weekend! that I didn't know about. Sure, sometimes when we're done with our Saturday activities, we rent a movie or go to a friend's, but most of the time, that time is mine, and I didn't know about it. I usually frittered it away with knitting while watching home improvement shows, and even when I did have a social activity, well... I bet I waste a lot of Friday nights, too. "What Not to Wear" isn't that important, really.

So, seeing as I have no trouble finding time to write 1st drafts, and the real lack in my life is any sort of time for structural or line editing, I hereby declare Saturday to be Rewrite Night. Two hours, minimum.

We'll see how it goes.

(I did it last Saturday, and it went pretty well. It was hard to sit down and start, but once I got going, Ed had to pull me away.)

Popular posts from this blog

Best TW feedback ever

Over at the dayjob, SMEs are feverishly trying to get documents back to me all marked up, in preparation for the release that's supposed to happen the week I'm back from VP. Today's best comment: Unfortunately not true. SMEs, they're so cute.

In progress: August 2024

Wind/Water/Salt  Chapters 39-51:   Still n eed to take up comments and revise.  Persephone  (probably not its real name): Continued to think thoughts.  Short Stories:   After posting that short story from last month onto the workshop, I picked one of those short stories I'd started and forced a plot onto it.  Critted  5  Got back  4 Submissions  0  Out there   0   Rejects   0 Knitting Cathar  (self). Started month with two inches done above the armholes. Listening to audiobooks, I finished the fair isle portion, cut the steeks, and set up and knit the neckline. Just the endless finishing now.   Blushing Cloud  (Knitty S/S24). Started the month with (still) three inches of back done. Socks take priority.  Elbrus socks (Knitty first fall 2024). Finished.  Elbrus socks II . Started the first.  Pole shorts  (Joan McGowan-Michael). I knitted these several years ago, but the...

Moraine

So a couple of days I thought I was done with this short story, and I wrote the last line of the story. I even dated it (that's how I can tell it's over). It was a little long, at 6600 words (I was aiming for 5000). But then I was walking to work, and I thought, "My, that was a lame ending. My endings are all crap." So yesterday morning, I scribbled out the date and wrote a bit more. And this morning I wrote a bit more again, and I dated it and called it done. And still, that ending seemed lame. So a few minutes later, in the last paragraph, I scratched out "the Oak Ridges Moraine" and wrote in "that stupid moraine". Much better. Now I can move on. But in the meantime, I was doing a little research about the Moraine, and I discovered that EGTourGuide lives on it. Only by one or two hundred feet, but I thought it was funny. Good for you, EGTourGuide, with all those excellent plants growing on that substandard soil, where in the olden days (you kno...