Wondering if I can squeeze in two more revision/copy-edit passes before I send this baby off to press. #Watermyth #Debutnovelist #amwriting #writingcommunity #writinglife #writing #writers #authorsofmastodon #writersofmastodon

I'm dividing my writing focus this week between

(1) Co-authored academic articles
(2) That sole-authored article I've been revising at a snail's pace for the past few months.
(3) My novel, Watermyth.

On the novel-writing front, I'm almost done with this pass. Just one more chapter to go. But then I go back to the beginning again. I'm tightening things up, adding texture on the sentence level, and trying ensure the diction is exactly the way I want it to be. Also ensuring characters have sufficient dimension. There's room for improvement. Once semester tapers off towards the end of June (also my birthday week), I'll throw my energies into formatting etc.

I want to get all that out of the way before I start throwing myself (so much throwing!) into music exam preparation/recording.

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Hey, while I am trying to stay awake long enough that I can sleep at a halfway reasonable hour, shall we play a game?

I saw this game on That Other Social Media Place. Pick a number, any number from *checks* pages 1-531 (I told you it was a chonky book, this is just in MS Word). And I'll post a quote of 1-3 sentences from that page. I'll do it before I pass out.

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Got a decent amount of revision done tonight. A little every day, and I can see the end of this particular tunnel. I'm sad about the delay but also relieved. More time to make this a novel I can release into the world without doubts is a good thing.

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And yes, cleaned up another chapter of Watermyth tonight.

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Got a lovely blurb from one of my! favourite! authors!!! for Watermyth.

But I am going to be a very patient person and only share it when the book is in press.

But you know I VERY! BADLY! want to share it. 😅

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Done my several rounds of separate bars of Mertz's Capriccio and finished revising another problem chapter in the third section of Watermyth. We're getting closer but since I've delayed publication I'm going to try to put in some more of my language in. Well, you know my language when I'm doing that thing I do. I feel there's not enough of my language in there when I do that thing I do. 😅

I know this sounds terribly immodest but I really want to give the best of me.

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Well, I've finished doing the major work that needed to be done on this chapter -- removing the pluperfects from an entire scene, rewriting various other scenes. Going to do another pass tomorrow evening before I move on to the next chapter of Watermyth.

But for now, I shall sleep and dream of making sticky date pudding (hopefully next weekend's culinary adventure, though I will need to acquire more dates).

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I may be bummed but working on Watermyth today I'm reflecting that the extra time is exactly what Watermyth needs.

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Guys, I'm okay. I just think it's best for my novel that I just STFU about when it comes out and let it be the book it deserves to be. I'm just really frustrated because I've been struggling for 13 years with this book, but I never really lost faith in it so I just have to struggle a bit longer and keep the faith. I'm quite fed up that I got slammed with more academic work but it's unavoidable.

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I'm still working on the Watermyth and will keep doing so this weekend but I'm factoring in any additional editing time I will need, some new work that my dayjob threw at me, my overall health and the learning curve involved in formatting the novel and preparing it for press.

If I'd any sense at all I would have just shut up about it until the book was in press. Well, now I know what to do for the next book. 😛

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Managed to fix that one scene and remove all the pluperfect tenses by reworking the narrative. Made the dialogue more natural and plausible too.

I pass out now. I even did laundry while half-ded.

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I'm extremely tired and sleepy but fighting for some time to continue with Watermyth copy-edits. Been a looong day at work etc.

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Pluperfect/past perfect can be an annoying tense both to write and to read. Wherever I can flatten time but show difference between two temporal points in the narration's past, I try to do it to ease that transition for the eyes that read. But sometimes, there's just no fix. Argh. Glaring at this chapter right now.

(fair disclaimer: I studied stylistics with a focus on narration, voice and POV back in my MA days)

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I'm wondering if maybe the #debutauthor tag for me is a bit misleading given it's my debut *novel but I've already had 26 short stories published (and a good chunk of that professional), with translations and reprints. Is there a #debutnovelist hashtag?

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