Today, October 1st 2010 is the first day of editing my novel Fraternity of Greed. I've never edited a novel before and I remember the pain and anguish of editing papers 1/100th in size in school and know that this task is going to be gargantuan. Essentially, I am going to have to take this cluttered work that spat out of my head last summer and organize it into something elegant and also potentially publishable. As I thought about this at my desk earlier I took a look down and realized that if the editing process needed a good simile it was already right in front of me with my cluttered desk.
They say that cleanliness is next to godliness and clearly I'm more human than most, thus cleaning my desk sometimes feels like an insurmountable task. About every month or so, I go through and put everything in its right place and while the task is Sisyphean it is none-the-less rewarding. One step at a time, I go through each area of the desk and either throw away the unnecessary or find an appropriate spot for organization. After a just a few minutes I already feel rewarded as clean "areas" begin to appear and grow. Before long the areas overlap into bigger swatches of cleanliness and finally in a couple of hours I'm done and wonder why I waited so long to start the process in the first place.
As I start editing FoG (Fraternity of Greed), I'm going to keep a little web log for anyone the feels like following along as someone with cursory writing talent at best attempts to turn a promising piece of work into a publishable one. For those that don't know I'm actually a math major by training and in the world of finance so my brain is beating to a different drum that most writers I assume but I feel compelled towards writing and that's what has brought me to this point. I finished my first draft one month ago on August 31st and at the advice of Stephen King "On Writing" I took some time away from the novel to "forget" about it and hopefully will find it easier to edit now that it will not be so fresh in my mind.
So without further ado, I am opening up my first draft, printing it, and getting started. Hopefully the process is more fruitful and less Sisyphean than cleaning the chaos that is my desk.
Technorati Tags: Editing, Novel, Fraternity of Greed, Clenliness, Day 1
They say that cleanliness is next to godliness and clearly I'm more human than most, thus cleaning my desk sometimes feels like an insurmountable task. About every month or so, I go through and put everything in its right place and while the task is Sisyphean it is none-the-less rewarding. One step at a time, I go through each area of the desk and either throw away the unnecessary or find an appropriate spot for organization. After a just a few minutes I already feel rewarded as clean "areas" begin to appear and grow. Before long the areas overlap into bigger swatches of cleanliness and finally in a couple of hours I'm done and wonder why I waited so long to start the process in the first place.
As I start editing FoG (Fraternity of Greed), I'm going to keep a little web log for anyone the feels like following along as someone with cursory writing talent at best attempts to turn a promising piece of work into a publishable one. For those that don't know I'm actually a math major by training and in the world of finance so my brain is beating to a different drum that most writers I assume but I feel compelled towards writing and that's what has brought me to this point. I finished my first draft one month ago on August 31st and at the advice of Stephen King "On Writing" I took some time away from the novel to "forget" about it and hopefully will find it easier to edit now that it will not be so fresh in my mind.
So without further ado, I am opening up my first draft, printing it, and getting started. Hopefully the process is more fruitful and less Sisyphean than cleaning the chaos that is my desk.
Technorati Tags: Editing, Novel, Fraternity of Greed, Clenliness, Day 1
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