Keep Calm and Carry On Writing by Jan Edwards

As I type the temperature outside is around 26c, which I quite like, generally speaking, but will concede that it makes it harder to concentrate on the jobs at hand. 

Having spent the morning packing boxes in the shed in anticipation of our house move I did indulge in a bottle of cider with (for) lunch and yes I’m sleepyyyyzzzzzzzz

But no time for naps. Packing aside I still have deadlines – one of which being this blog.

So... what to say? The Winter Downs WW2 themed book launch went spiffingly on the 3rd June with tea and cakes and readings, dressed as a Land Girl in honour of my amateur sleuth, naturally. Than came the eight day blog tour. Full on postings to everyone and their dog! Exhausting work.


Now I knows the perceived wisdom is to keep up the pressure but I look at it this way. If I am sick of posting the same stuff over and over I am fairly certain that everyone  of my social media contacts are equally sick of reading it. So time to take a breather and turn to projects neglected for the duration.

The not so short story is coming along, but needs some added pondering.

The immediate task is the beta reading of a novel.  Now I do suffer from a degree of dyslexia so I don't attempt to carry out line edits for typos and punctuation but I pride myself on being reasonably good at spotting continuity and logic glitches -  provided they are in someone else's manuscript and not my own.

Selective glitch-spotting? What is that all about? 

I put it down to re-drafting fatigue. A curious phenomenon that every writer I knows suffers from to varying degrees. A writer can read their own work ten times over  and catch most of the glitches - but fail time and again to spot that one instance where a character leaves the room twice (or not at all as the case may be). Or the classic mysteriously changeable eye colour.

Yet reading work written by someone else and it leaps out at you like a starving rabbit on a carrot!
 
Which only goes to prove that editors are golden and an absolute must!

I strongly suspect  I shall need to throw my hat into the room when I next meet up with my writing pal - but such is the lot of the truthful beta reader.  

After that I MUST finish that short story I have promised that editor...  So time to get that tin hat adjusted – open every window to let the breeze through - and carry on writing!  (Shouts to husband  ‘is there any more cider in the fridge?’)

***

Find out more about Jan's writing on her blog page.

Comments

Fran B said…
Brave woman attempting to move house and write at the same time. Mega-multi-tasking, indeed. Or have you cloned yourself?
Jan Edwards said…
Feels like I should - I suspect little beyond the short story will be completed in the next month :-)
Umberto Tosi said…
Now I won't beat up on myself next time I come down with "re-drafting fatigue." Thanks, Jan! Also, I'm printing myself one of your "Keep calm and carry on writing" signs. I look forward to reading Winter Downs. I love mysteries from that period.

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