Polishing

So, COOKING FOR THE DEAD (not sure we’ll keep that title, though I love it), the book I’ve been working on all winter, is in the final polishing stage.  My editor had a few suggestions to brighten things here and there,  and bring out two characters a little more.   My own need was to let the manuscript become cold enough that I could spot those pesky repetitive words and images. 

This is the fifth time through the entire manuscript, and the pickiest.  I’m sitting down with the book every day for a few hours to read carefully, sometimes aloud, marking the manuscript as I go, and making notes on a legal pad about what is still required.   I think I need to switch the order of a couple of scenes to give more sense of narrative drive.  Pare down the narrative to a leaner point in a couple of other places.  Backstory is very important to this tale, and figuring out how and where to layer that into the story without slowing it down is challenging.  I always put in more than I need at first, then cut back.   

Come to that, I don’t know why I write characters with such histories, either.  Maybe we all have that much history?

Anyway, slow going.  Careful, persnickety going a the moment.  I did stumble over one lovely alliterative, internal rhyme in a paragraph that was sweet, and I’m keeping it.  On the other hand, I’m slashing entire paragraphs in places.   Smoothing, smoothing. 

We have had a great time this year, Elena and I.  This is like the last day of camp.   

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