Just a quick update · 3:05pm Jul 14th, 2022
So that story I alluded to in a previous post - I've finished transcribing it, and have begun editing it.
But... well, I will admit, my way of editing is really just rewriting it. This is mostly because the notes I wrote when I was writing the first draft - notes geared towards editing the second - require a lot of up-heaving the original and its components and drafting entirely new scenes and content to fit to the image I am painstakingly molding in my mind. I've gotten up to Chapter Four of the original - Four of what is initially set out as a good 28.
This is nothing new. Capote, I think, said something to the effect that writing is rewriting (this might have been someone else), which was why he hated Jack Kerouac and his manic-method of writing On The Road. And Hemingway wrote that after his six-week writing stint which yielded him the first draft of The Sun Also Rises, he spent the following winters rewriting it again before publishing it.
Revision has always been, for me, more than fixing grammar - which I see a lot of new authors do, apparently, for their second drafts. I find this perhaps a little concerning. Grammar really ought to be the last priority of writing well - and also the one that an author is willing to break, if they're also willing to put in the work to break it. Revision, then, is the act of cohesion - of making clear what wasn't clear, either by cutting or by adding and fixing and changing. Second drafts hardly look like the first unless you are really lucky with the first.
My point is that this story is going to take a bit longer to get to the stage where I can send it to editors, so... if no new content comes from me for a while, that's why. I apologize in advance! But the work is the work, and the work must be done.
Still, some things feel concrete already, and while it is doubtless I will continue to revise the big and the small, I figure that the last I can do is show you a smidgen of what the story has to offer. Do keep in mind everything is subject to change, but I think some central tenant or identity will still shine through the revisions, regardless of the amount.
With that said, here are the story's first four paragraphs:
One morning, Chamomile saw Astral standing in the grove, which was only a little odd, because he was dead.
The grove was where she went every morning since his death, because it was there where his grave resided. It was a humble thing, made of granite as opposed to typical crystal. Surrounded by the natural overgrowth of the forest and beset frequently by the musky vapors and mist sown in the shade of Bridlewood’s thick canopy, it periodically became damp and covered in moss and vines that had to be cut away each day. When it rained, as it had the night before, the water would splash mud all over the marker, meaning that she had to clean the surface too in order to preserve what had been carved onto its stoic face.
That morning, when she had come to the grave armed with her shears, a bucket, and a sponge, she caught sight of Astral standing just at the edge of the grove. His mossy-green coat and wavy, sand-colored mane nearly blended in with the verdant supply, and it was only because of how his eyes shined like stars in green space that she was able to see him. She glanced up from her task, the shears held in her magic. He was looking at her with a kind of knowing smile. He seemed almost healthy, too, without the emaciated form of a dead pony walking.
She looked quickly from him to the grave, then back to him. He hadn’t left, nor had he come any closer to where she stood, and she wondered if something was holding him back. She blinked, and he was still there. She frowned at him, but he kept smiling, and now it seemed that the smile, for how knowing it was, was also tinged with sadness, though that could easily have been the result of the long shadows that cascaded down into the grove like lightless figures.
See you in a month! (Maybe even sooner if any of us are lucky)
What did you mean at the end “Maybe sooner if we’re lucky”?
5672505
I mean that if luck holds out, I may have a second draft ready before a month has passed. Nothing too quixotic about that.
5672508
Ok
5672510
You didn't think it meant something else, did you?
5672520
Just wanted to make sure since you also work on EoJ
5672791
I hope you realize that I do more than just EoJ stuff - both before joining and after. My life does not revolve around it as much as you seem to think it does.
5672805
I’m not saying that. I was just wanting to understand what you were talking about so I didn’t misunderstand it that’s all
5672811
It's... Obvious what I'm talking about, though.
I mean, I linked to the previous blog, then said, very clearly, this blog is about a future story, and gave you an excerpt from that story, and said that said story might be released in a month, sooner if I'm lucky - all this is about the story, nothing else. I'm not sure how you could interpret it otherwise.
Do you not want to read the story? I guess that's fine, if a bit disappointing. Sometimes but rarely do I post about EoJ because this profile is for my fanfics, so that's where my focus largely is.
5672812
No sorry I do like your stories i just speed read through the post so I didn’t read everything so that’s my mistake sorry