Monday, July 2, 2012

The Revised.

My husband happens to be gifted at voices & reading--he has the sweet, old-fashioned habit of reading webcomics to me so that he can do the silly voices of Scottish cacti and punchy brunettes. Partially because of this and partially because I'm still trying to decide what to bring to my writer's group, I took him up o his offer of reading one of my short stories aloud so that I could hear it & edit it. Great googly-moogly, was that a mistake. While he's a good reader for things that he enjoys, he managed to verbally turn the story into a manga cartoon complete with emotion lines and giant bubble eyes. It was completely weird to hear the story spin on that axis. I'm not sure how to describe it, only that he read it from a puzzled perspective. His overall comments emphasized both his confusion and, therefore, his lack of emotional investment in the story. Reading a draft aloud is a good way to pick up on little grammar flubs and abrupt changes in POV or direction. After hearing the story from his radically uninspired perspective, however, all I want to do is pitch the story. Is it really as silly as it sounds? More importantly, is it worth pouring another several hours worth of editing into it to fix the problems? According to my mom, who is currently video-chatting in the background, my real talent lies in overstuffing desks. That may be because I hate watching myself in videochat and I keep putting things in front of the camera. This is also why I don't get anything done at my desk. I need like a running cartoon or something to effectively block the sight of me typing. Bleh. In goofing around on the blog, I think I'm answering my own question. Yes. Work on the story. Stop parading rubber dinosaurs in front of the camera and get some work done!

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