Tuesday, January 19, 2010

I Only Stutter When I Write

I have finished my first complete edit of my current work in progress.  Thank you, thank you.
(I bow to all the imagined applause.)
I am pretty proud of myself.  But before we drift off on a cloud of our own imagined brilliance....I would like to share a few hard facts that I have discovered.

I have a stutter.  Not when I speak...apparently this is only manifested in my writing.  Repeated use of the word 'the', not one, not two, but three chapter thirty-one's, and my favorite....a whole section where I retyped an entire scene.

It pays to edit, very carefully, more than once.  If you are like me and your inspiration tends to strike late at night, remember that there is a thin line between genius....and sleep-deprived craziness. 

Maybe if I stopped writing like this:






But that couldn't be it.

7 comments:

  1. That's pretty funny. But I know what you mean. Sometimes when you get on a roll at night you just gotta push onward taking the mistakes in stride. The thing I used to hate when I wrote a lot in longhand is when I look at what I wrote the previous night and could decipher it.
    Oh, glum bummer.
    Lee

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congratulations on finishing it! *Applauds* No small task.

    Ha, ha. Yes, late night writing. I try to avoid it but sometimes it can't be helped.

    It's amazing how often you can go over your work, revise and edit and still miss things.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm so happy to hear this. For awhile I was beginning to think I was just crazy, but if someone else stutters like this too...well it means I can't be crazy, right? Or, maybe, we're both crazy.

    I pick the first choice: stuttering = not crazy, just an unfortunate side effect of writerly brilliance. : )

    ReplyDelete
  4. I applauded you, Marsha :-)

    I don't always write at night, sometimes I write during the day, but either way, you're right, editing is definitely a good idea!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congrats!

    Here's to editing. I know exactly what you mean. The last sentence of my WIP is "You will pay for this!" OMG, the stereotypicality of that hurts me! ALl I can tell myself is that I was asleep when I wrote that! lol!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am so glad you all understand my pain. We are not crazy...we are WRITERS.
    Repeat that...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Woo hoo! Congratulations on getting that finished. Lately, inspiration has only been striking at night, but it's normally not like that for me. I guess I'll embrace it and hopefully get some work done, like you!

    ReplyDelete

It helps to know I'm not just talking to myself.