A line from 'The Response'

I believe the first high-five came about by accident when two Roman soldiers, standing too close to each other, raised their arms in a salute. :-)

Extreme editing!

Here, my friends, is what is currently on my plate:
While editing chapter four of Book One of my trilogy, I had a '"eureka'"moment. As a result, I took chapters 12,13,14,15,16 & 17, fused them into three chapters and, in the last five days, also edited out roughly 12,000 words.  One of those remodeled chapters now sits between chapters three and four, another one between chapters eight and nine, and the last one between what are now chapters eleven and twelve. Those chapter numbers will change soon, however, because I am also dividing chapter six up into two chapters, one of which will receive material I am removing from chapter seven. Another chunk of content from chapter seven will be moved to chapter eleven, which in turn...is your head spinning already? Well, mine certainly is, but I am still having fun. Although my manuscript is bleeding from a thousand wounds and bruises, I am happy because I like what I see emerging. I am keeping a copy of the old version, though, just in case it was a passing spell of insanity that prompted me to do what I did. ;-)

Editing

The second half of Book One contains long conversations between King Solomon and his son, Menelik. In the previous draft, those talks are spread over several consecutive chapters—totaling approximately 33,000 words—and there is very little change of location in them. Even though many different matters are being discussed, that's far too much of the same activity in one place, wouldn't you say?  So now I am trying to break that cluster of chapters up and move some of them closer to the front of the book. This means I'll have to create half a dozen new settings (and reasons) for those chats and edit out all references to events that will soon no longer precede those relocated conversations. Ooh, that's gonna be so much fun, baby... not!! ;-)

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When you are a writer, all your clothes are work clothes.

A thought on writing

Every single page in your book ought to have a redeeming quality. It must contain something that justifies its presence there. Perhaps not each of them can be filled with riveting action or profound thoughts, but in the very least it should feature a few lines that cause the reader to pause and marvel at the beauty of the language.

A line from the novel

"I see you later," he said, cheerfully waving goodbye to her. "Odd," she mumbled facetiously, "I see you right now." 

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You must engage your brain to know the knowable; you must disengage it to grasp the unknowable.