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Multitasking and Selkie Update
Aug. 4th, 2007 10:17 pmThis week has been a busy one, with the summer consumed mostly with travel leaving little time to work. As it was, Selkie got pushed from one day to the next as I found myself unable to focus on four projects simultaneously. I'm in the middle of a copyedit: had a rush novel crit to do; am still trying to finish Seeing Is Believing, preferably before the last weekend of August; and of course Selkie.
I've learned something about my ability to multitask. It's simple. I can work on numerous projects simultaneously. I've proven that time and again. What I hadn't realized is that I can't do them on the same day. I do not have the ability to switch gears when the task is the same. How different are critting and copyedit from editing my own work? The answer is not enough :). So, moving forward, rather than a plan to do multiples of the same task on the same day, I'll give Monday to one task, Tuesday to another, and so on until I can get my goals done. A version of multitasking, just on a weekly, rather than a daily, scale :).
Now on to the most important thing of all. I cut words today. Some 749 of them. That might not seem that much, but traditionally when I edit my word count creeps up. Especially since there is at least one scene that needs adding, and my scenes run 1000-2000 words long, reducing the overall is something wonderful.
This particular cut comes from the hand of Valerie Comer because of a conversation that went something like this: (For those of you who don't know, this book is a novelized retelling of the song The Great Selkie with liberal license taken on my part :).)
Val: But does the vision have to be there? It makes the male MC unlikable.
Me: But it's in the song.
Val: But does the story need it.
Me: Umm...
After a couple rounds of this when it was reduced a smidge each round, I ended up asking the same question: But does the vision have to be there? And the answer was no.
The really nice thing is with all the changes I needed to do so the scene didn't feel like a big chunk had vanished, I still only added back 227 words. The current predicted length is 119,814. Sadly, we're still looking at around 120k-125k unless I find some more to cut.
And stats:
Edited Today: 15,145 words (and what a long day it was!)
16 Chapters complete - 33% of the novel
33 Chapters remain
79,426 Remaining word count
39,443 Current Total
I've learned something about my ability to multitask. It's simple. I can work on numerous projects simultaneously. I've proven that time and again. What I hadn't realized is that I can't do them on the same day. I do not have the ability to switch gears when the task is the same. How different are critting and copyedit from editing my own work? The answer is not enough :). So, moving forward, rather than a plan to do multiples of the same task on the same day, I'll give Monday to one task, Tuesday to another, and so on until I can get my goals done. A version of multitasking, just on a weekly, rather than a daily, scale :).
Now on to the most important thing of all. I cut words today. Some 749 of them. That might not seem that much, but traditionally when I edit my word count creeps up. Especially since there is at least one scene that needs adding, and my scenes run 1000-2000 words long, reducing the overall is something wonderful.
This particular cut comes from the hand of Valerie Comer because of a conversation that went something like this: (For those of you who don't know, this book is a novelized retelling of the song The Great Selkie with liberal license taken on my part :).)
Val: But does the vision have to be there? It makes the male MC unlikable.
Me: But it's in the song.
Val: But does the story need it.
Me: Umm...
After a couple rounds of this when it was reduced a smidge each round, I ended up asking the same question: But does the vision have to be there? And the answer was no.
The really nice thing is with all the changes I needed to do so the scene didn't feel like a big chunk had vanished, I still only added back 227 words. The current predicted length is 119,814. Sadly, we're still looking at around 120k-125k unless I find some more to cut.
And stats:
Edited Today: 15,145 words (and what a long day it was!)
16 Chapters complete - 33% of the novel
33 Chapters remain
79,426 Remaining word count
39,443 Current Total
