Bad: A piece of equipment breaks, yet by all outward signs is operational.
Ugly: The gear failure causes 10,000 bucks worth of sensitive equipment to restart randomly.
The plus: No one heard me scream in the server room.
So close on my final pass before Team Eagle-Eye. So close…
One more top down read/revise pass before the Team Eagle Eye hand off. Looks like Thursday or Friday is the target date, about a week behind schedule. Ah, well. One man’s delay is another’s choreographed plan.
By saving the “finicky†readers for this final pass, I hope to maximize their contributions. For instance, the less grammar glitches the gun expert encounters, the more focus he has for technical issues like weapons handling and police procedures.
However, a persistent gotcha in my writing even after all these revisions: dropped words. It’s a virtual guarantee that out of every thousand words, a crucial one exists solely in my mind — not on the page. That’s progress, though. In the early days of the manuscript the ratio was one dropped word for every one hundred, which made for interesting reading.
Dropped words are not my only problem; sometimes spelling errors take me downtown. Towards that end, here is my favorite howler from the novel:
“…and never slam ducks the big guys, then someone must be protecting them.â€
There’s more to the line, but using a fragment makes the glitch more obvious. Spell Check flagged that baby AOK, as did yours truly.
Entrusting your life to another man is one thing, and sounds scary as hell because it is. Letting your father-in-law belay you up and down a thirty-five foot wall punches that trust up to a whole new level.
The Wife, a few relatives, friends and myself went rock climbing last Saturday. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed the experience. The massive facility was an indoor climbing park with a variety of routes from the very novice to the very experienced. Developing a feel for the ropes and carabiner took some practice, but once mastered, the basics are straightforward. Rock climbing just might make a good second hobby for me. I’ll go again.
Interestingly, though I have serious issues diving off boards more than twenty feet high, I had no problem looking down a thirty-five foot wall with nothing but a quarter inch rope between me and cement.
I must note that the father-in-law is in serious condition for a man in his sixties. In a side by side race to the top, I barely edged past him for the win. Let me emphasize the barely. A good reason to stick with a work-out regimen.
I’m savoring the pre Team Eagle Eye edit process. There’s something rewarding about smoothing the rough edges off a manuscript that’s like polishing a large tarnished collection of silver. The work can be tedious, but as the pieces begin glittering, the monotony is forgotten.
Working with the manuscript like this also reminds me that I find the story interesting. After focusing exclusively on a single project since October 2004, time has a way of numbing out some of the old youthful enthusiasm. At the onset, I thought the idea could work as a novel. Two and half years later, after reading through it, I still think it works as a novel.
Hopefully, other people get a chance to concur. Or dissent. Either works for me.