Something I do because I don't want to edit more tonight.

on Monday, August 16, 2010
FUN FACTS I DISCOVERED WHILE EDITING PARADISE SEEKERS:

- Sam "considers" something 56 times over the course of the book. Word repetition, go! (I considered)
- Sam "think" 55 times over the course of the book. (I thought)
- People "laughed" 40 times.
- People "grinned" 34 times (or used a variation of "grin," not counting "grinding." Stupid search finding words within words)
- People "took a deep breath" 7 times
- I say "God" (as in "oh God") 4 times (and it has gone up after editing. I'm going to hell)
- I use "Hell" as a swear word 30 times.
- Desmond says "Bloody" 6 times.
- "Damnation" is used 11 times. "Damn" itself, used as a swear, happens 19 times, plus 4 for "Dammit."
- I use "crap" 20 times. This is because it was my generic swear replacement after the original edit for all the "God"s. Sadly, most have reverted because only Mormons say "crap" that much.
- I use the letter "i" 21,837 times. This has no relevance to anything ever, because it counts it within other words.
- The phrase "Paradise Seekers" is mentioned 42 times, including the title and chapter titles, etc.
- I use 1324 "ly" words. This is a big one, and very hard for me to catch when I'm reading through and get accidentally caught up in the story. My best bet is, after going through it once, going back word by word and cutting. Keep in mind this one (unlike the previous ones) is from the currently being edited version, which means I'm failing at life. In fact, I might go fix these now.

I fixed most of the considers, grins, thinks, and laughs. I kept thinking the word count would go down, but instead the stupid thing has been going up. What? I think it's because I find these stupid problems and have to fix them. I'm trimming a lot from sentences, but then I had to add things to fix incoherent sections. Trimming words doesn't beat out adding paragraphs.

I am not looking forward to editing WGMD, but I'm gonna do it sometime. I really like how the story ends, it just needs work beginning at this stage in the game. All the Sanderson-ites in Writing Group v. 2.0 got some of the worst parts of the story, ha ha. I guess Andrea finished it, so she knows it gets better (and she said so! The chapter right after Sanderson's class gets a bajillion times better!).

No school = happy Nathan. GOALS: 1k a day on Effulgent Corruption, two chapters a day editing of Paradise Seekers. Gotta get Writing Group v. 1.0 over for another 7 hour editing fest. Hopefully we'll go a little faster this time.

Anyway, editing is done for the day, so I'm going to go write some Effulgent Corruption, which has been neglected this past week. Also, time for agents to start sending my rejection letters back; my bathroom needs wallpapering.

3 comments:

Nathan said...

FOLLOW UP: I didn't 1k, I axed one-hundred "ly" words from Paradise Seekers in like the first four chapters. I'm going to cut this down if it kills me.

Anonymous said...

Editing... how lovely it is...

Anonymous said...

That would be one ly word.

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