“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” ― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Hi, there, Dear Reader. It’s late morning here in Lithia, Florida, on Tuesday, May 24, 2023. It’s still cool outside on this late spring day (75°F/24°C) under partly sunny, but with meteorological summer only a week away, the humidity, heat, and chance of rain are rising. According to the forecast, the high will be 83°F/28°C, and we may see some scattered rain showers as well.
Today’s post will be shorter than usual, partly because I have my storytelling stuff to do later, but mostly because I only slept five hours, and – of course – now I’m foggy-brained and not terribly eager to do anything. I had an extremely long writing day – I added 2,636 words (five pages’ worth) to The New Story – that ended at 1:23 AM, and I got up around 6:45 AM…tried to sleep a bit more but failed…so, oof – all I want to do is sit in my room and do…nothing. (Or, if I do something, it won’t be writing.)
“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Well, that’s not going to happen. I will work on The New Story because I promised myself that I’d see this project through to the end no matter what, but I’ll focus more on editing what is already written rather than adding more material to the rough draft. I often delude myself into thinking that because I make tiny edits as I write a first draft, the resulting material is acceptable, even good, so I just plow on through the rough draft without making sure that all my i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed, so to speak. As a result, I tend to get overconfident and think that I am my generation’s answer to Ernest Hemingway or Stephen King…only to discover – sometimes way after I’ve self-published something on Amazon or even here in A Certain Point of View, Too – that all kind of mistakes, ranging from typos all the way to plot holes as deep as the Marianas Trench – crept in because I was too cocky (and too lazy) to double-check my manuscript in a methodical, even merciless manner.
“To write is human, to edit is divine.”― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
As I said earlier, yesterday I wrote five pages’ worth of new material, but even though I made corrections as I wrote, I know that I will find mistakes – both big and small – in the text. Heck, I noticed at least one inconsistency in the narrative just before I closed my .docx file and made a mental note to fix it ASAP today, which was at 1:00 AM! So, yeah, I have a lot of rejiggering to do before I go ahead and add new scenes and chapters to The New Story.
Right now, though, I need to shower, put on fresh, clean clothes, and rest for a while before I can battle with the good-but-messy manuscript later today. So, until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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