Be-hindsight

This week--very far behind-- started to re-edit my 'Thriller romp' (working title ) Masterly Inactivity which I haven't looked at in almost 2 years. In my defense, I had sent it off to an editor prefacing only wanted to know the costs of certain editing aspects (like construction) looked at , as fairly confident in my own grammar etc skills. As no doubt I wasn't a good bet for her money wise, the editor tossed out the old chestnut about perhaps joining a writing group instead, which I did later, reluctantly, as attendees were all at different stages in their writing and nothing really pertained to me or mine except in one instance, a lead, and one minor critical remark on the beginning of my story Sin Eater which I later took into account when editing that for an on-line journal submission. Good, enthusiastic people though to whom I hope only good things happen as I know the effort required to produce and publish anything these days.

In any event besides the group , that year I wanted to write a story a month for a year, which I did , sending half off to various contests. None were published at that time and just when I decided I'd probably let that rest for a bit, came my story Hard As Granite in the published Level Best Books anthology Snowbound, so the time wasn't entirely wasted, letting me 'hone the craft' on the forerunners.

So now there is no excuse not to finish off this M.I. behemoth . The re- editing is crucial of course but becomes a real drag after going over almost 60,000 words a few times. I have determined to do only about 2 hours a day so as to stay fresh, and at that calculation , it will probably take me a good month to do a once over , and then another few weeks to set up properly, grammar etc . So lots of work (and self-discipline) ahead of me with no guarantees.

Sigh! The fate of a (hack) writer.

NOTE: If you have Windows 10 you should have , under the Review menu, a Read Out Loud button. Use that as an additional Writers Tool to help with sentence structure and flow ...