I'm sitting in the car and editing a short story while The Child is at an event. Over the summer is was easier to edit because the sun shone well after we would get home--but it was in some ways more difficult because of other park patrons' music, noise, or cigarette smoke. In November, I have a small camping light hanging from the driver's sun screen illuminating the manuscript.
I'm finding that I'm more likely to catch problems with a piece if I'm working with hard copy, so I've been marking up the paragraphs and sentences and now I'm thinking about how the ending needs something. When I reviewed the piece last week, I liked the ending because it seemed bittersweet, a little funny, and totally in character. Reading it again this week, it seems off... I think I can make the end talk to the beginning of the story more, which would help.
The other day, I was writing in a ... okay, it was a pizza place, not a cafe, but it's particularly empty when I go to write there, and the staff doesn't appear to mind that I'm hanging out there writing. In fact, I was speaking with one of the cashiers, and it turned out he was familiar with various SFWA short story markets. I was surprised that he had actually heard of "On the Premises" (semi-pro) -- he wanted to be a published author, too -- and my street cred went up several notches when I told him I'd placed three stories there. It was one of those Hermit Moments, when you're standing on a rocky trail raising your lantern high and looking upward for a sign from above, and you turn around and realize there are folks looking at your lamp and taking it for their sign.
The radio show I've got on the car radio is currently featuring the works of Purcell. A trio of men was singing, "welcome to all the pleasures there are?" But the chorus has moved on to "Then lift up your voices ye organs of nature...something-something... Whose charms rule the drama of... what??" What was going on in 1660 England? Obviously, I need to find the libretto.
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