the february update

Guh, what a month.  Snow, cold, snow, cold, rain, fog, and I'm still single.  Clearly one of these is not like the other but I think you get the picture either way.  Y'know I don't really have a reason to write these monthly updates aside from the desire to write SOMETHING for you to read and the desire for ME to give myself some goals.  We start small, yes?  Then you pull a Leeloo Dallas and "bada-boom!  Big bada-big boom!" get the hell outta dodge.

Sadly I won't be getting the hell outta dodge anytime soon, but that's alright.  For now I tinker away at the little things that will eventually lead to it and then someday, who knows?

February was a bust.  Not as much of a bust as January but it was still a bust.  The month started out with a whole bunch of silly anxiety over the premier of "26 Golden Things," and then it kind of went the way these winter months tend to go.  Poopy.  The premier was a blast (making that anxiety very silly in hindsight) but then I didn't really have anything else to look forward to this month.

Of course I then returned to editing my first book, abandoned on the side of the road like a bastard child when I found better things to do.  I actually love the editing process, I really do.  The great thing this time around was that it had been almost three years since I even read my first book let alone worked on it, and that old adage is soooo so true about setting something down and coming back to it later.  You know notice all kinds of mistakes, great ideas, grammar errors, brilliant bits of dialogue, and of course the use of too many commas.  I think the biggest challenge was getting rid of commas and telling myself "Sean, it's ok to not put in a comma in every single sentence you write."

I'm sure you're looking for commas now.  Don't worry, I'll keep using them.  I JUST DID IT!

So I print off my book, I take a red pen, and I go to town.  Usually it is pretty relaxing because I sit in Starbucks for a few hours a day maybe three times a week and I just let it flow.  It's a chance to really see how the work fits together and to fix the things you either know NEEDED to be fixed or just, y'know... should be fixed because they suck.  It's amazing how much you grow up over the years in terms of what looks good on paper, and seeing as I started writing this puppy back in August of 2000, I've grown up.

Once I've finished with the red pen it is time to make the changes to the master copy in the computer.  And for the most part, again, that is a fun little task.  Until I get to pages like what you see above and do a very firm face-palm-cringe at my notes.  Sometimes my notes don't even make sense, lol, or I'll forget to cross out the part of a sentence I was replacing.  So it isn't necessarily a "find the word here and change it there" situation, I actually have to pay attention.  But when all is said and done I have completed another edit and for a while, the book is exactly as I want it to be... knowing full well it will never REALLY be exactly as I want it to be.  Sometimes I wonder how many times I've rewritten the same sentence, going back and forth between the same words everytime because I think it'd sound better that way ::shrugs::

Well today I did finish the edit and took one step closer to one of my New Year's resolutions (publication.)  @roamingmo put me in touch with a friend of hers who is an editor and reads these things for a living, so we'll see what she says.  Or how it goes.  Whichever, really, because it's the first step I've ever taken to truly doing something with my work.  Cross your eyes for me!  Or your fingers, I don't care!

Now focus turns to Book II and the fairly... massive undertaking that involves.  Book I is kind of the median book, even though it's first in the line up, because II is the longest and III is the shortest.  You can see the size variance below.

I get exhausted just looking at it; that's what editing is for!  Tally-ho!

What else happened in February?  To keep this blog short, not a lot.  A friendship grew much stronger and a bit deeper than I'd have initially thought, work continued to be a joy for me, I had a great photoshoot with @caitcd, I was still single on Valentine's Day but did get one Valentine from someone that made it all ok with me, met with my realtor to get the ball rolling on buying a house, aaaaaand I ended the month by shaving with a real razor and not the beard trimmer.

Is this a new trend?  I don't know!  Stay tuned for the March update and we'll discover it together (c:

I suppose the only note that really matters is this: right now, I'm happy.  Ciao kiddos!