Chemistry does not lead to obfuscation. Chemistry is straightforward. Mix a bit of sodium borate solution with a bit of glue and cornstarch and you turn some liquids and powders into a ball for bouncing. Get the proportions right and the ball is sound every time. But when the classes turn to philosophy, double talk becomes quadruple talk and my mind wanders. But wandering minds are punished.If it appears simple, that's because it is. But though it took only thirty seconds to write, it was, up until this morning, the last bit of the novel that hadn't left the first draft stage. Now it has.
Why did it take so long? Well, in the manuscript I wrote "(Find a simple chemistry experiment to include here.") and then I promptly forgot about it. Went on writing the book. Finished the book. Started on the sequel. All the time I knew there were things I needed to do on the first novel as part of the edit to make sure things were right. One of them was to search for little parentheticals like this. I finally did it, and found this one. Now it's fixed.
So what else is there to be done: As I continue editing the thing, I'm also going to start a list of names, particularly people. I don't name a lot of places in this story, but I do name some people and I want to keep track of who I've named and who they are so I may re-use them in the future and so that I don't re-use someone who's dead or incapacitated or annoying or something like that.
And, as a bonus, I got to get rid of the six sheets of paper that experiment was on from the top of my desk. Oh, I love convoluted sentences!
No comments:
Post a Comment