Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Slow going on "The Alice '65"...

I'm finding this rewrite to be more focused on details than I expected, so I've only gotten through another 2 chapters. I'm checking my grammar and sentence structure for clarity and removing the ellipses with abandon but still having to make certain the paragraph makes sense, and it's proving to be demanding. My hope is it proves to be an even better, easier read...but I doubt I'll be able to start on the dust jacket for the hardcover edition, this weekend.

I usually go into projects with too optimistic an idea of what I can and can't do and how quickly it can be done. I've been trying to temper that with a bit more reality, but I don't always succeed. Looks like this was one of those times.

I think I'm going back to using my MacBook to finish this rewrite for A65. I'm finding my new MacBook Pro is a pain in the ass when writing. I need to relearn how to use it so I can stop messing up my work. This evening, I brushed over the trackpad in some way that caused it to highlight a couple of sentences in a paragraph then, when I went to get out of it, wound up shifting those sentences to a different part of the paragraph. I was able to correct it, easily enough, but only because I noticed it. And this is with me trying to minimize the sensitivity of the trackpad. So that's also slowing me down.

Of course, I rarely take into account the distractions of life -- like needing to iron or clean my apartment or deal with bills or certain stupid moments in interactions with people or companies online. I wish I had an assistant to just take care of all that. A nice little intern who looks like Chris Evans and thinks I'm brilliant.

Yeah, then I'd talk to him all the time and never get any work done...

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