Post by Scribbler on Mar 5, 2009 21:52:24 GMT -8
That's it for Chapter 3, and the final bit of the Arrogance plot!
Ephemera: How the Arrogant are Wiser
This thread has been set up for feedback, discussion, whatever. I suppose I don't really need to state that every time, but I like patterns, so uh... deal with it.
This was a very difficult chapter for me, in large part because I've become very aware of my shortcomings, and there was no good way to address them without totally scrapping the chapter - which would have meant missing the deadline and throwing off my plans for the ensuing chapters. It's worth mentioning here, I am a recovering perfectionist. If I see a mistake, I don't like to present it. I would honestly withhold completed assignments from my teachers at school if I thought that I had made a mistake -- and the sad part of being a perfectionist is, it doesn't make you perfect, so I did things like that a lot.
Because I know my obsessive tendencies, when I had to decide between timeliness and a better quality product, I knew I had to be able to say "good enough" and put it out anyway; what I had originally written would be my base, and I'd clean it up just as well as I could. Just over the past week, I've made an enormous number of edits and changes, trying to find ways to get out of strict prose and make the story more interesting to read.
Even as I look at it now, I see some things that I think worked well to these ends - but a lot of things I'd like to do differently. I think that overall, the chapter is a good piece; there are some places I went into too much detail, others that probably could have used more investment, but it completes the mission it had for completing the storyline, and pulls the Arrogance series to a close.
I'm already telling myself that when this novel has been completed, I'm doing a total edit of everything - and one of the things I plan to do is take the entire Arrogance line and compress it into one or two chapters, of which chapter 3 will probably see the most dismemberment. However, that day is a long way off, and I've got a ton of work still to do on the next storyline of the Envious.
I'm looking much forward to the next step!
Ephemera: How the Arrogant are Wiser
This thread has been set up for feedback, discussion, whatever. I suppose I don't really need to state that every time, but I like patterns, so uh... deal with it.
This was a very difficult chapter for me, in large part because I've become very aware of my shortcomings, and there was no good way to address them without totally scrapping the chapter - which would have meant missing the deadline and throwing off my plans for the ensuing chapters. It's worth mentioning here, I am a recovering perfectionist. If I see a mistake, I don't like to present it. I would honestly withhold completed assignments from my teachers at school if I thought that I had made a mistake -- and the sad part of being a perfectionist is, it doesn't make you perfect, so I did things like that a lot.
Because I know my obsessive tendencies, when I had to decide between timeliness and a better quality product, I knew I had to be able to say "good enough" and put it out anyway; what I had originally written would be my base, and I'd clean it up just as well as I could. Just over the past week, I've made an enormous number of edits and changes, trying to find ways to get out of strict prose and make the story more interesting to read.
Even as I look at it now, I see some things that I think worked well to these ends - but a lot of things I'd like to do differently. I think that overall, the chapter is a good piece; there are some places I went into too much detail, others that probably could have used more investment, but it completes the mission it had for completing the storyline, and pulls the Arrogance series to a close.
I'm already telling myself that when this novel has been completed, I'm doing a total edit of everything - and one of the things I plan to do is take the entire Arrogance line and compress it into one or two chapters, of which chapter 3 will probably see the most dismemberment. However, that day is a long way off, and I've got a ton of work still to do on the next storyline of the Envious.
I'm looking much forward to the next step!