Be back later (aka delays)

There's a local used book sale going on today. Excuse me while I feed my addiction.

***

I will be back later with a proper post. :)

***

And now I'm back a day late to offer a proper post. In a way, this has been a long week, and when I have long weeks, it means I've gotten very little work done. And it's true this time. Every day this week I thought I would accomplish a large chunk on the second draft of Lightning Strikes 1,200 Times, but every day I got sidetracked with research.

In particular, I have continuity errors that must be solved within the second draft, which means I'm spending a lot of time rereading what I've got from the first draft, and making the small adjustments as I go to make sure it all jives down the road. What kind of continuity errors, you might ask. Well, in my first draft, I made mention of a high school, but I've since changed it to an elementary school, which means that every reference to it has to be hand-checked so all the descriptors line up. The other thing is that in my first draft, I only had generalizations that I now have to give weight to by making them specific, and that means spending more time researching items to ensure that proper terms are used.

Of course--and this is the most annoying part--I have to spend a lot of time checking Place names to make sure I'm not referencing real-world places and businesses. I don't want to get into liability issues, so the best thing to do is just Make Stuff Up.

All that aside, the other thing that causes delays is that these short stories I'm writing are all dream-based, and thus I still them all in the same world, which means occasionally I'll rework something in one that should actually go to another. When that happens, I have to dig up my notes for the others and jot them down in the appropriate sections.

This is, I think, why my second drafts always take the longest. In fact, if I had to put it into time, I'd say the second draft takes twice as much time of all the other drafts put together. It's pretty daunting when you think of it that way, so I try not to think about it and instead just do it and get it done. There's no need to intimidate myself out of working on a project -- I'd never get anything done otherwise.

Anyway, I need to get back to work, so I'll chat with you all later. Thanks for stopping by!