Sharpening the knives for NaNoRevisMo
I have never participated in NaNoWriMo, because it took me more than five years to complete one novel and even the thought of spitting out a whole one in a month is morbid and terrifying.
And when I say “complete one novel” I mean “write something that has a beginning, middle and an end”. It is yet to be edited, so I am well chuffed to have stumbled upon NaNoRevismo (something I had conveniently planned on anyway), a whole month devoted to “[plunging] yourself into the filthy, glorious work that is revision”.
Yay!
Slashing unwanted adverbs and pointless filler and nonsensical garbage (I honestly have no idea what I meant when I wrote “the gold sunset [was] dispelled by the hues radiating upwards from clusters of imperious high-rises”. Huh?) is fun! On the other hand, I’m beginning to understand the meaning of “Kill your darlings”. Chopping out some of those sparkling-and-clever-but-ultimately-useless turns of phrase is hard.
