Editing Milestone and Google Takes a Power Trip

The original picture of Zenzo, the coughing cat

All was quiet on my blog for several days. Not by choice, and not that I post so regularly that anyone could tell. For once, the reason was not procrastination or laziness. Nope: Google was having a power trip.

It all started when I tried to email a video of my cat coughing to my vet. The video wouldn't go through. Not to the vet, not to my husband. So plan B. Upload the video to YouTube. Only, in order to upload, I had to make an account. Fine. I made one under my cat's name, with my cat's birthday, hit enter, and realized before the error screen had time to pop up that my cat was under 13 years old. Which meant she couldn't have her own channel.

Nine Books Read in July: Or, No, I'm Not Obsessed with Charts

I got to pet a baby goat recently. Made my day.

Lest you think I get "worried" about my reading quota in a general year or month, let me begin by saying that I don't really care about quantity. I care about quality. But I like to track things. I like to compare year-to-year results, and I like to have a quantitative view of what I've been doing. It's why I track my daily writing/editing amounts. It's why I have a spreadsheet to track my income from my jobs. And it's why, for the last four years, I've tracked the books I've read by month, author, and genre.

Which is why I know that in July, I read 9 books! That's on top of a very busy personal month and a very busy work month. How did this happen? Easily: Good books.

Writing Tips from a Personal Hero

Like a lot of people—like a lot of writers*—I'm a bit in awe of Joss Whedon. He makes complex writing look easy, fully flushed-out dichotomous characters appear natural, and weaves a fine balance of action, thrill, humor, and romance in ways that delight mass audiences. Much to my disappointment as an audience member, but my secret envy as a writer, he's ruthless with characters, and even favorite cast members aren't safe from death (so not Star Trek here, folks!).

Which is why, when I found his Top 10 Writing Tips, I felt disproportional glee when I read this:

My Idea Files Are Brimming

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I'm so excited by my next project! Wait, you say, aren't you still editing the novel you just finished writing. Yep. Still chopping 20 words from each page. Still debating over every single word. Still putting in the hours every day. But that just means that my creativity is free to explore ideas unconnected to this book without any censoring or plotting.

No critic. No agenda.

That's a vast, free place to exist in. 

Which means that while I'm excited to work on my next project, I don't really know what it'll be yet. However, I do have a plethora of options. In no particular order:

A Gift for Eva

Kyoko atop the
complete Eva manuscript

I have often fondly mocked Laurell K. Hamilton, despite being her devoted fan. I know from religiously reading her blog that she embraces a melodrama in her daily life that would be exhausting for me. To her credit, she seems equally as exuberant in love as she is in her darker beliefs. None of this I mock. I imagine her family loves her dearly for her intensity, and I know I benefit from it when reading her novels.

To be specific, I mock the fact that every Christmas, she blogs about purchasing gifts for her characters.

For. Her. Characters.

For the make-believe people that exist in her head. Yes, I understand her logic that the people are so real to her it feels like they exist, and since they are the manifestations that perpetuate her livelihood, it's great that they're so real to her. But to buy presents for them, or to get up to the register with an item in hand, only to realize the person doesn't truly exist, seemed just shy of insanity.

Eva Edits: Round 1 Done!

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The first round edits of my 443-page screwball magical realism are done. I now have four sticky note's worth of issues to address, one major plot point to streamline across the novel, and a genuine, good story.

I also have a few new stats (because we all know how I adore stats).

• Number of pages cut: 12
• Number of words cut: 3,728 (only 2 percent of the novel)

The New Page 69 of Eva

Last week, I posted page 69 of Eva, following the idea that page 69 of a book can give you a micro-view of the greater themes and characters of the book (according to The Page 69 Test).

However, I've been hard at work editing this last week. Editing for me often means trimming, so after cutting two pages worth of text out of the first 68 pages, here's the new page 69, which I feel more accurately reflects the themes and characters of the book even if it doesn't include one of my favorite scenes.