Every time I edit anything, I feel like I'm slapping it around... which is fine, because most of the time I edit my own stuff, and most of the time it needs a good slapping-around.
As I'm looking over this short story, taking stock of the "edits" I've been scrawling all over a quickly formatted print out, I'm noticing there are more notes than actual story. I'm left wondering, while I look at this, if I was actually thinking about what I was writing while crafting this particular piece... ?
That's probably what they tell you to do in creative writing classes (though, I wouldn't know, I've never taken one, though I fully intend to one of these semesters)... get a shell first, and go in and poke around with the fine bits afterward. I suppose that makes sense.
So, recently I finally decided on a brand of mechanical pencils to utilize. This may sound like a bizarre sort of thing to make a decision on, but believe me, it's important. I used to just buy whatever was on sale, inexpensive, or convenient... but the last few batches I've purchased have had various problems. For instance, one set had massively gummy erasers that lasted only a few uses, and were made of such a weak plastic that if you actually erased something with a bit of emotion behind it (as I'm prone to do), the chassis would physically shatter. That will not do! Another brand was a bit more expensive, but had replaceable parts, like the two pencils in the pack came with extra erasers, extra lead, all packaged nicely in a little portable carrier. Unfortunately, these pencils are prone to jamming, and the slightest jarring of the pencils (for instance, carrying them in a backpack, holding them, thinking about them fondly) causes the lead to shatter into no less than 27,000 pieces. When you advance the lead, then, it dribbles out in micro shards which are completely useless for writing.
What did I go with? Papermate Sharpwriter #2, the sort with a twist-action lead advancer. The major malfunction these have is that their clip for attaching tends to snap after two uses, but since a pencil clipped tends to be a pencil lost, I've chosen to ignore this design flaw... in every other aspect, these seem to be superior. A fine product, paper<3<3mate!
Also, my music listening habits continue to lean toward very wussy electronic music... ah the joys of learning to appreciate little intricacies.
