So, over the past couple of days, working on the final edits for THE MOUNTAIN OF KEPT MEMORY. I’m about 60% of the way through the manuscript, but the edits are so trivial that honestly, I don’t think they count as “work.” About twice I’ve had to change more than a sentence.
My editor and I are never completely going to see eye to eye about the use of ellipses. I like them more than she does. But, whatever, I will take them out. Mostly.
Now, if she wanted me to spell “all right” as one word, I would argue.
Unless something major turns up in the remaining 40% of the manuscript, which I think is not at all likely, I will send this back to Navah on Friday or Saturday. After this: copy edits and page proofs, and those things don’t count, either. When I send it off this time, I’m moving MOUNTAIN from the “Fiction: Finished” folder to the “Fiction: On the Shelf” folder.
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I’ve apparently overused ellipses as well. In each individual instance, I feel like I had a good reason to use an ellipsis, but I see where my editor is coming from. They sort of lose their impact when there are so many of them.
Can’t argue about alright. It has one specific correct usage, and even there all right works too. But still, it doesn’t compare with alot.
Yeah, Pete, but NO ONE argues that “alot” is really okay. For which I am grateful.
James, one of the very last things I do is go through a manuscript and remove about a third of my dashes and about a quarter of my ellipses. It’s a tedious job, but worth the couple of hours it takes. But even so, I still use more ellipses than Navah likes, apparently. But hey, not an important issue.