Jeannine Atkins

Revising, especially when it gets drawn out, and it almost always does, needs some rewards to prod me along. Naturally, chocolate comes to mind, but I’m trying to get a little more creative. I know some people do word counts that give them a satisfied feeling. For me, sweet as seeing all those numbers lining up, getting bigger, just doesn’t do it. Maybe it’s cause I’m not a number person, or maybe I’m cynical – I know those numbers are going to tumble and crash soon enough. Who was the writer who said he spent the morning putting in one word and the afternoon taking it out? Oscar Wilde? Mark Twain?

So I’m thinking of keeping a tab of words I take out or words I substitute – sending off the shoddy or the perfectly good word but a bad fit or just not for me (like clothes to Salvation Army). I might make a pretty good list. Tracie Vaughn Zimmer has a great July 3 entry “This is Just to Say” about tusseling with the word “just.” (and see how I used/misused “just” in sentence above).

Or I’ll just go back to some satisfied sense in seeing a few clean (for now) pages piling up.

P.S. On LJ using -- I tried to follow the FAQ instructions to make a link to "traciezimmer" LJ. After much trial and error, error triumphed. If somebody has helpful advice, it would be welcome!