Self-editing

It is a risky thing to be one's own editor. On the simplest level there is the danger of missing typos because one's brain sees what one meant to write even when the eyes record what one's fingers actually typed. On many other levels one reads what one intended, regardless of what one has written. Nonetheless, I take the risk and am grateful for one reader commenting on the high quality of editing and grammar in the first book. Bless you, Marguerite.

At this point I am reading The Light Bearers for what must be the fifth time, at least. Both segments of Darkslayer were completed back in 2007, at least in the first draft. I am indebted to those who pointed out typos in the early reading. It is interesting to read it almost five years after the first draft. I have a bit of distance now, though the tale is very much in my blood. Every now and again I tweak a sentence that seems unclear in either concept or grammar or attempt to straighten what is a bit too convoluted.

There is pleasure in a fresh encounter with phrases one has forgotten ever writing. One such is highlighted in the graphic above. Ian Darkslayer may have destroyed a demon of darkness but he did not banish darkness from the world or from his own soul. In a stark moment he recognizes how much he is part of the world's ills. For me it is the climactic moment of the second book, a true loss of innocence at the ripe age of seventeen. Along with his mystical experience of Uncreated Light and his encounter with utter darkness, this moment shapes forever the man Ian will become.

Since I am just beginning to write the fourth book, the one recounting the rest of Ian's life, it is good to revisit how he grew into manhood.

--the BB

The false bodice ripper

I am proofing The Light Bearers, as y'all know. I am struck (you must remember this was first written in 2007 and I am now reading at a bit of a distance) by how it is laden with romantic play. So much so that I should probably blush. Oh well.

Confession: I am also enjoying it all.

Desh, the Raven, is the goddess of love. As our band of heroes sail toward the Holy Isle of Vios it is said of two besotted star singers that "Desh flew between their eyes." It is fun to coin phrases based on another culture's mythology, maybe especially a mythology of my own creation. We all know the look when the Raven flies between the eyes of people in love.

It has been a long time since I posted a writing/proofing update of this sort here.

--the BB

Food

This evening I had dinner with a friend then came home and watered the garden. I checked in online then returned to proofing The Light Bearers, the second half of Darkslayer and Volume Two in The Chronicles of Mídhris. I am about one third of the way through, which is encouraging.

Then I loaded the slow cooker with small potatoes, onion, yellow and orange peppers, a ton of stewing beef, mushrooms, red pepper flakes, lemon pepper, sea salt, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and red wine. All stowed in the fridge. Now, if I can remember to take it out tomorrow morning and turn it on, I shall come home to stew for dinner (and many meals thereafter).

Not that exciting a day but a good one.

Sweet dreams, poppets.

--the BB