(no subject)

[martasfic]

I'm working on a fanfic story, specifically editing it after 3-4 days away from it and seeing all kinds of things that I would have been oblivious to before. Some scenes need expanding, other lines are superfluous, awkwardly using the same adverb twice in close proximity, etc.: the kind of self-editing I think most experienced fanfic authors do, particularly ones that write slowly and try to craft their stories carefully. The important point is there was some sort of a break involved, the intellectual equivalent of a palate-cleanser between meal courses.

I've been doing some online tutoring and editing of high school essays, and one of the hings that keeps coming up is people don't write drafts anymore. It's not so necessary with the way word processing makes editing possible in a way typewriters and long-hand simply doesn't. But it strikes me that if you don't follow the basic draft process at some point if you don't take time off between writing what you think the final word of a story or essay is, a few days, and then rereading + editing it before submitting it, something really very important is lost.

Or maybe my brain's just slow and needs a chance to reboot. This could very well be me.