{"id":387,"date":"2009-08-02T09:48:01","date_gmt":"2009-08-02T14:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quackingalone.wordpress.com\/?p=387"},"modified":"2009-11-15T19:28:22","modified_gmt":"2009-11-16T00:28:22","slug":"my-life-version-3-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/02\/my-life-version-3-0\/","title":{"rendered":"My Life, Version 3.0"},"content":{"rendered":"

I'm currently in the midst of a\u00a0 pre-publication edit of A Sixth Sense Of Forever.\u00a0 <\/em>Yeah, Boz's story.\u00a0 He played prominent roles in Faerie<\/a> <\/em>and Golden<\/em> <\/a>as the friend who kept his cool in the midst of Nial's and Colt's chaotic adventures.\u00a0 So he's got it coming and he gets it - over the top and then some.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the course of this edit, given the current state of the world, the job market and everything, I keep thinking - what if we could edit our lives?\u00a0 Think of the sections you could go back and rewrite.\u00a0 You could\u00a0take back the phrase \"I quit\" or you could say it instead of saying \"I'll accept that.\"\u00a0 You could respond differently to a job review or rewind all the way back to college and major in something different.\u00a0 You could\u00a0keep the one that got away or re-script a fight or nasty e-mail exchange with your spouse so that the words you can never take back get taken back.\u00a0 So wouldn't it be great to get a shot at editing your life?<\/p>\n

Well, there's a problem with that.\u00a0\u00a0Like the old cliche about woman's work, editing is never done.\u00a0\u00a0What book is ever the absolute best it can be in the mind of its greatest advocate and worst critic - the writer?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If Shakespeare had another shot at Romeo and Juliet<\/em>\u00a0 or if Margaret Mitchell could revise Gone With The Wind <\/em>would they change anything?\u00a0 As a writer who knows how I'd answer that question, I'm betting they'd find a hundred or more things they'd revise in what legions of readers find to be great work.\u00a0 Because if you ask any author whether this book or that play is the absolute best it can be, the answer is always going to be - no, I can make it better.<\/p>\n

With this edit of\u00a0 Sixth Sense <\/em>I find that the big bones of the story stand up well.\u00a0 It's the little details I'm revising....a word here, a phrase there, rewriting a description or changing a comparison.\u00a0 Mostly, as is generally the case, I find I can tighten up the language\u00a0to make the story flow along faster and smoother.\u00a0 \u00a0The numerous places where I can tighten dialogue, edit lines and revise scenes are likely products of my creative process.\u00a0 When I sit down to write something new, I\u00a0make no effort to contain or control - I follow my muse where she leads.\u00a0 With the hindsight of editing, I can make muse's meanderings make sense.<\/p>\n

I suspect that all writers are prone to editing, but I don't know if they're as prone as I am.\u00a0 I never like to post anything or send it to anyone without looking at it one more time.\u00a0 If I got a call from an editor or agent tomorrow saying they'd read the posted free samples of Brotherly<\/a> <\/em>or Faerie<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and wanted to read the fulls, I'd make changes.\u00a0 If they said they'd read the fulls and needed a word copy to present to a board or to revise themselves - I'd still make changes.\u00a0 I expect that if they\u00a0published the book and I passed it on a bookstore shelf somewhere I could leaf through it and yes, find things I'd like to change.\u00a0 I wonder if\u00a0my favorite writers - Julia Quinn and\u00a0Johanna Lindsey - pick up one of their old volumes, flip through it and think - Boy, I could do that so much better today.\u00a0 <\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bottom line of the editing process is that as long as I'm growing and changing, as long as I'm working and improving my craft,\u00a0then I'll see changes I could make to improve any past project.\u00a0 If I didn't see those changes it would mean I'd stopped\u00a0growing and learning and improving.\u00a0 And that would be a very, very bad thing.<\/p>\n

It's too bad that we don't get a chance to edit our real life stories to make them flow more smoothly.\u00a0 Maybe that's because the bumps and bruises, the miscalculations and mistakes give us the experience that got us to today.\u00a0 And maybe, where we are today is where we're meant to be right now, at this moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We can't edit our pasts, but we can use that editor's eye to change our futures.\u00a0\u00a0We\u00a0need to pull out the story of our yesterdays and see the places we'd like to re-write and revise and understand the spots we'd like to alter.\u00a0 We can't change yesterday's mistakes but we can refuse to bring the past into tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Today is Volume I.\u00a0 Tomorrow is the sequel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I'm currently in the midst of a\u00a0 pre-publication edit of A Sixth Sense Of Forever.\u00a0 Yeah, Boz's story.\u00a0 He played prominent roles in Faerie and Golden as the friend who kept his cool in the midst of Nial's and Colt's chaotic adventures.\u00a0 So he's got it coming and he gets it - over the top ...continue reading \"My Life, Version 3.0\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":726,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}