Progress on Making Corrections

Do you remember, I received back the edits on my novel, 513 double-spaced pages of manuscript? Now I'm inserting the commas I should have known belong and changing my "Em-dashes"--there are quite a few of these critters for some God awful reason.

Maybe, you're thinking, "Well, good, he's about done."

T'ain't that easy. I have to find the place on the computer screen (my working [master] copy of my novel), then re-find the redmark (in the manuscript stack), then make sure I decide which I prefer--usually the editor's way, except sometimes I'm removing whole paragraphs and making minor repairs on either side of that. I find a few begin quotes and stuff that neither of us caught (I don't mind, because it means my editor got caught up in my story). After putting in the correction, I have to recheck that I took out the old incorrect thing. Say, there's about three markups per double spaced page (yes, I'm pretty error-prone; don't think it's that unusual), a couple chapters of that, and I'm bushed. I'm now on page 172 of M/S. That makes 172 x 3 = 516 corrections made (approximately, of course), not a small amount of work. And only about a third of the way on this--ha, ha--"final edit."

At chapter completions, I re-read the chapter aloud and fix things that still aren't fixed or that make my tongue stumble.

Every couple hours, even very dedicated writers need to get up and take a walk around the block, lift some weights, do some chores, get their feet up, watching TV. Well, I do anyway, to keep my blood circulating and bones right. I know a few others like Rita St. Claire, a romance writer, who completely agree with me, and some who agree, but don't do the exercise breaks nearly enough. Anyway, do watch your ergonomics. Your writing will be and stay better if your healthy.

Back to editing: I found a number of words I may use too often as I once again see my work both through my eyes and through my editor's eyes. (There's a lot of brain work going on in this process, though not much typing per se.) I'm making a list of these overused words and will do a Search-Find in MSWord to count them and see if I can think of better replacement or if I can delete the whole sentence without screwing up the story. Here's my list so far (I'm sure it will get longer as I go):

damn
darn
dang (want to make sure these are attached to different characters as their unique dialog pattern)
f*** (yes, I have some of those. Sorry, Aunt Tilly.)
f***er
sh**
you know
tears
also
I guess [this is how I speak; well, all my characters shouldn't talk like I do)
nodded
eyebrows
raised eyebrows
Jeez
smirk; smirked
smile; smiled; smiling

Every authors "word-abuse" list is different, I'd guess.

It's not so much that they really are overused. I just want to check them. Seems like they come up a lot, especially in dialog, and I use a lot of dialog.

I've already learned to try to not use weak verbs like forms of "to be" and "have". Some of my sentences are much too involved for todays dumbed-down public, and they need to get broken-up into shorter sentences.

I miss putting in a lot of "?".

I'm still spelling the last name, "Charlie" as "Charley" once in a while. I can't believe it.

Time to get up and stretch. Take care, all.

PS: Some of the writing in my story is pretty darn thrilling.