Last Man Standing

Starting things out today by being thoughtful of what I need to accomplish. Also, the need to avoid the dread words, just and really. I just really need to avoid them. But seriously folks, I need to make a list of things included in the email from Jeff and post them on the wall next to me so that I review them regularly.

I was expecting a great night's sleep last night and was disappointed again. I don't know what happened but it wasn't great or even good really. I tossed and turned in bed a lot.

This morning I'm expecting a call from the radio program Way with Words. It shouldn't take too long and then I can get on with the other stuff. It was amazing the difference between reading the email yesterday and the night before.

When I read it the first night, I was depressed by the amount of criticism in the mail. It seemed to me that I didn't have anything at all going for me, from the critique. This is also a common problem with my perceptions.

So I let it simmer in my mind overnight and then re-read it and began breaking it down into more bite-sized chunks. The second time I read it I understood that it was less of a solid criticism, than a bit of pointed criticism followed by some advice and references to that criticism.

Seeing it this way made it more understandable and helpful. After that, I started to see individual sections that were giving me suggestions about what to do to improve my organization and the way I viewed the story. That was helpful.

One of the common complaints I'm getting is that it takes too long to get to the story. This is also said as wordiness. I get so interested in describing the scene that I put the story off almost indefinitely. With that style, I should be writing real estate ads.

I need to think out the story first or go back and absolutely slaughter the piece after the story becomes apparent to me. The point being that I can't actually, let's add actually to the word list, write the story until I know what it is. That may seem an obvious point, but I guess it hasn't been until now.

So for penance, I need to go back and re-write some of the earlier pieces to:

• focus on action and moving the story
• move through dialog whenever possible.
• remove all Just and Really and Actually

Just start there and see if that improves things.

More later,