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Saturday, March 28, 2020

Incremental Progress

Today was another day of working on my book - this time, an editing pass. It takes a lot to write a sentence and sometimes even more to cut it down to a better, shorter one. If you're used to my long, digressive sentences, with subordinate clauses and connected ideas, all strung together with commas, then you'll understand what I mean. My basic style makes the Hemmingway App light up the screen like a yellow and red explosion.

Because of that, I spent a lot of hours today basically reading and re-reading, cutting down here and there. Consolidating sentences and thoughts. Making formatting changes (mostly suggested by a fellow co-author authorized to look at the manuscript.)

It's a slow, unpleasant process and mostly feels like you're spending minutes deleting hours of work, or hours deleting minutes of work. The result never feels commensurate with the investment of effort.

But it's necessary. In the end, you'll get a better book.

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