Sunday, March 20, 2011

rewriting deja vu

As I waited for my car to get fixed the other day, I was trapped in a tiny waiting room with my laptop, no internet connection, and a mental decree that I wouldn't sneak over to play solitare instead of writing. I had critiques of one of my wounded short stories staring at me and a big blank space indicating where I'd left off over a month ago on my editing efforts. I didn't go back a reread anything, I just started up where I'd left off. Then there came a paragraph that several people had comments on. It needed some tweaking.

My usual method for tweaking is to read all the comments then go to a blank page, and using what I remember of the area (I hadn't read in over a month) see how I could write it differently. Then I paste the new effort in and compare the fresh one with the original. Creepy thing was, they were almost word for word. I'd managed to tighten a smidge, but that was about it. I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday but that's apparently because my brain is too busy remembering entire stories word for word. Not that I could recite it if put on the spot, but give me a keyboard and it spews out. The mind is a mysterious thing.

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