Editing of Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia is coming along . . . and about time, too. Last weekend’s yard work left me with only a couple of hours of writing time, then during the week I managed to squeeze in maybe about an hour or two on one evening, and that was all. It’s been pretty ghastly—and of course, my rotten luck, this had to happen while I was editing Chapter 7, which also happened to be one of the worst chapters in terms of the amount of work needed. (Chapters 6 & 7 seem to have needed more work than any of the others, because of various factors that it would take too long to explain.)
This weekend has been much, much better. Chapter 7 is done, apart from one last passage that still needs a little polish (the words say what I want, but the phrasing is a little awkward). So now I’m into Chapter 8, and it’s coming along nicely. I’ve got my momentum back, I think, but in addition to that I have the feeling that the remaining chapters were better done the first time round, and the editing should go a lot faster as a result. For that, big thanks are due to my editing team at Xchyler; I’ve learned a lot, and that shows in those later chapters.
I’m taking a short breather to make some tea, and to write this post; in a few minutes I’ll get back to work. I have music on headphones—I have trouble writing when there’s too much ambient noise, but I also have trouble when it’s too quiet. I have to choose music-to-write-to carefully; nothing too powerful, and nothing with lyrics (having words feeding into my ears is a concentration-killer when trying to write). I find that soundtracks from movies and games is best (right now, I’m listening to the soundtrack of Sacred).
Tea’s ready; back to work. Until next time . . .
Pete Ford 