Grounded by the words

Finding these so ravaged made me heartsick. I'm hopeful they'll bounce back by the end of the month.

I spent much of the morning with the second book of my series; having double spaced it, I confirmed all the chapter numbers were correct, then read through several of those chapters, finding a few typos; one can never be careful enough as honesty mistakes slips through or the on table instead of on the table. Those made me grimace as well as smile, better to find them now than after it's released. In one instance I swapped out experienced for endured only because later in the sentence I used during and didn't like the sound of endured and during so close together. Maybe that seems a bit picky, but to me good writing means a smooth flow of words without overt redundancy. I can't make it perfect, but I'd like to achieve something darn close.

Perfect writing isn't possible because like all art, a novel's quality is subjective, to a point of course. I try to hit that ceiling as closely as I can, but still keep my fingerprints intact; it is my story, my POV, my heart and soul enmeshed in scenes and paragraphs. Thankfully I like revising; in some ways it's easier than writing, although occasionally it's a tricky beast, kind of like the deer that roam near our house. I like watching their antics, but when they feast upon my nasturtiums, I get livid. The photo above is of three plants now living in the enclosed garden; once they recover, a safer place than where they previously dwelled will be chosen. I haven't figured that out yet, better to be up to my eyebrows in revisions. Dang pesky deer!

Currently the garden is in the swing of plants simply growing (or recovering), leaving me plenteous time for novel fun. And I'm grateful to switch gears a little bit; despite my love of digging in the dirt or cutting up fabrics I prefer sitting at my computer creating new worlds or chipping away at messy manuscripts. Something about writing satisfies like no other hobby/pastime endeavor and that hasn't changed in the last decade and a half since I went from a homeschooling mom to all kids in public school or at university. Loads of free time was suddenly at my disposal and I ran with that liberty straight to a keyboard and monitor, lol. Kept my butt in a chair and pounded out lots of hoo haa which has led to today's alterations of experienced for endured when during comes later, although I'll never be immune from honesty mistakes or the on table. And that's okay; typos are just as much of the process as deer munching on my beloved flowers, ahem. Merely a matter of catching both the errors and errant animals before the damage is permanent. And remembering that writing is for my entertainment as well as a form of necessary self-expression. What I wish to convey might not be what is taken from it, like how the deer find so tasty what I see as a gorgeous decoration, ba-dum-bump....