Teenagers. Teenagers teenagers teenagers.
That’s what I remind myself when I’m looking at Sitting, Waiting, Wishing. What I’m currently working on right now involves characters that are in their early 20s, so shifting back to 17 to edit SWW has been a bit challenging. I stare at the dialogue and say things to myself like, “would she really say that?” and “is that how he would word it?” Because what Dusty and Kyle and Evan say…I don’t think they would say that if they were older. But they’re not. They’re teenagers. They are a certain way.
Now with all that said, I am writing this post to tell you that I updated SWW! You can read the new chapter by clicking on the link at the bottom of this post. I got to experience the pains of editing a chapter again. The way I edit is to read the chapter from top to bottom, then bottom to top at least four times. So 8 times in total at the very least. I can’t remember when it was that I learned reading your writing from bottom to top is the best way to edit, but I’ve done it probably since I was 16. The logic behind it is that the story doesn’t make sense when you read it from bottom to top, so it’s much easier to pinpoint mistakes.
I also got to see the form to upload a chapter to my own site for the first time in a few years. It was only vaguely familiar. And to think that four years ago I used to see it every few weeks. Nothing but nostalgia. It definitely brought me back.
I decided not to touch the layout for now. The footer has the wrong copyright year (2009!) but I’m just going to leave it until I start posting my new story. The layouts on the site have always had visual clues or nods to whatever the current story I was posting. If I changed it now, I’d just give it away. Also, I know that right now pointing your browser to afterglare.com redirects to this blog page and not the main site. I think I’m going to leave it that way until the new story, too.
The next chapter of SWW is one of my favorites of the whole story. It’s also lengthier than the chapter I just posted. I hope to do it justice once it is edited. I’m only half a week late from when I expected to post this chapter, so if I say I’m going to try and get the next chapter out in the next two weeks, maybe I’ll post it in three weeks? ;]
Here’s the new chapter: 3-V
