by Theresa Garee | Feb 4, 2018 | Blog
“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.” – Henry David Thoreau
I don’t usually plug products in my newsletter essay or blog posts, but this month, Freedom saved my bacon so I will make an exception. Like many folks I know, I spend way too much time on social media and possibly on the Internet in general. I find myself on Facebook before I realize I’m there. And wow does time fly while I’m “like-ing” all the cute animal videos and making angry faces on political posts that upset me.
Technically, I have to be on Facebook sometimes since I have an author page. But I don’t have to be there all day. I can schedule my author posts so they appear throughout the day even though I’ve created them all in the same hour.
So how do I tame my desire to see every running photo any of my friends or their friends or anyone in the world anywhere posts on social media? Enter Freedom. I love it so much that I wrote about it back in 2014. I’d forgotten to use it for a while, but recently, with deadlines looming, I went back to it like an old friend.
Freedom is software that limits access to certain websites. It works both on a computer or your phone. I use it to block Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Yes. I’m the kind of woman who, if Facebook isn’t available, will spend inordinate amounts of time making LinkedIn connections under the guise of marketing. For shame!
With Freedom, I can start a blocking session immediately or schedule one for later. The scheduled blocks work well to remind me to go to bed. If it’s 10:30PM and both Ed and the puppy are snoring, perhaps I don’t need to read one more post about how to use the Insta Pot. I don’t even cook!
No, I am not being paid for this. I am not an affiliate or linked to Freedom in any way. I just know, as writers and human beings, our time is limited. We need to use it wisely. I’m not very good at that. So I let Freedom do for me what I can’t do for myself.
Do you have distractions that keep you from writing? How do you manage them? I’d love to hear more about it.
by Theresa Garee | Dec 3, 2013 | Blog
“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” – Henry David Thoreau
Last month during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) I edited out 50,000 words from a 193,000 word manuscript. It wasn’t easy. Partly because I am a writer and partly because of mental heath issues, I fall in love with my words. They seem hard won. Perhaps I just like to hear myself talk. But this document grew beyond anything I had intended or from my worst nightmares. I worked on it for a year and wound up with a monster.
I used the structure of NaNoWriMo to ease the editing process. I gave myself a goal of removing 1925 words each day since we were traveling at the end of the month and I would get no work done while we were gone. I started at the beginning of the book and read chapter by chapter asking myself difficult questions.
Does this scene belong? Does it move the story forward? Does it belong here? Could it be said in a better way? What is the point I am trying to make? Why should the reader care? Can I make it more interesting? Can I cut the scene altogether?
I was as honest with myself as I could be. Some days I removed only a few hundred words, but most days it was closer to several thousand. I found whole sections I could easily delete. I had repeated myself, drifted off-topic, or not made sense. These had to go. I found other places where the work held its own and those sections I kept. I wound up with a book of 140,000 words and a story that made sense to me.
There is more work ahead. Ideally I will remove another 50,000 words. I have stepped away from the book for now to let it breathe. The next edit will require even more self-honesty and brutal cuts. Some of my favorite parts will have to go. That is the work of writing. The first draft I wrote for me. These later drafts, and there will be many, are for the reader.
I’m reminded of the motto, “To thine own self be true.” This doesn’t mean I get to spoil myself or be sloppy. It means I must be honest with myself. Tell myself the truth. In editing, this is the only way.
