Friday, August 6, 2010

A Second Revision Runs Through It (It's Puntastic!)

Have I mentioned how puns are the guerrilla warfare of comedy? If you've got nothing else going, just hide a few in a sentence or two, and BAM! your unsuspecting victim never knew what hit 'em.

Anyway, we're not here to talk about my comedy chops. We're here to talk about the revisions on my story "The Machine", which have gone fairly well so far, if a bit slow. I started the process with a word count of just under 5,000 words at the start of the day yesterday, and after the addition of a major passage that I believe needed to be added, the count actually climbed to 5,200.

But, I got my head on straight after that, killing awkward phrases and clunky sentences like a viking gone a-raiding, and brought the count down to about 4,900. This revision, however, isn't finished, so one of my goals today is to at least finish the second draft.

I should note that I'm excited about this story. As I tighten up the prose, my voice is strong and clear, and I think kind of poetic in places. I'm sure this story, when it's ready to go, will suffer rejections just like any other, but this is another one that, at least for now, feels like it's good enough to find a home in a professional market. I don't say that about everything I write, but I mean it about this one.

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