I've been brainstorming a bit on sense of smell. It's interesting because I was far more generous (or at least acknowledging) on that for characterization of my bad guy than I was on the good. What is it with that whole bad boy sexy thing? Fortunately, I grew out of it personally, but professionally, it seems to linger. Eh, considering my current artistic focus, probably okay.
I'm also cutting out overused words and phrases. Some repetition is okay; in fact, it's voice. Everyone has their pet words and patterns. But too much gets grating, and the impact of each reference is much greater on the page than it is aloud in casual conversation. My worst offender: "Truth was." I had something like nine of these in the manuscript, some just a couple of pages apart from one another. Now there are three and they're spread out.
I'm also pumping up (so to speak) two of the three hot-and-heavy scenes because they are so important for emotional and plot impact. And as long as you're in that state of mind, might as well take advantage, right?
Huh. Can you say a man "slithered?" What if he's not a man anymore?
How O-C I've become:
I don't want to reprint the entire mss again until 12/1 so I'm changing a word here, adding a few sentences there. Then I have to print the changed page (more if it affects page breaks until the end of whatever chapter). Then I back up on my desktop, on my laptop, on disc, and on my highspeed USB device (which I generally refer to as "the little plastic thingie"). (I keep these on separate floors of the house.) Then I have to replace the previous version of the morphing pages with the new ones in my hard copy file. Because this is not insane enough, I've bought an additional little plastic thingie that I can carry in my purse in case I go out of town or something.
Anyway, trying to shake off some generalized pre-holiday angst with a teen movie/chick flick bonanza. Rented "Saved," "Raising Helen," "Mean Girls," and "A Cinderella Story." If they're awful (which particularly "A Cinderella Story" promises to be), I will nevertheless take comfort in mocking them.
