Surgery Without Anesthesia

For the last two weeks, I'm been excising extraneous words from Promiscuous Mode, cutting it from 109,000 words to 105,000. This was after a prior session which had already resulted in cutting 5,000 words.

I find it amazing that one can go back again and again making corrections. I also fixed a bunch of passive sentences, awkward phrasing (how did that get left in there?) and routed out unnecessary sentences, adverbs (especially) and adjectives.

It's hard work, this paring, but the novel is always stronger, better, more readable. A good editor could probably find a few thousand other words. After all, I cut 16,000 words out of World of Mirrors.

Next week, we're travelling to Sleuthfest, in Deerfield Beach, FL, sponsored by the Florida chapter of Mystery Writer's of America. I'm meeting with an editor or an agent and also reading the first pages of Festival Madness to an audience. Tonight I'm practicing on my writer's group and Thursday on my Toastmaster's chapter. Practice makes perfect, etc.

I'm also going to send out another half-dozen queries for PM. This is my last year of crime fiction writing unless something breaks. Then it's on to literary fiction, commercial fiction, women's fiction, whatever. And then to the young adult that is screaming, "write me! write me!"

It's hard to admit failure after pounding away at a project for almost 15 years. 5 books, endless rewrites, queries, groups, meetings and finally rejection. A lot of sucking up, believe me. On the plus side, I have become a decent writer--no one gainsays the competent writing. Seems to be the stories. They're good stories, but they're perhaps a little "thinky" as one instructor noted.

Heaven knows, anyone who programmed computers for as long as I did is bound to be "thinky." That's what computer people are--have to be. Thinky. What a word. What a concept. And mystery readers are people-people and like their stories "Feely."

I tried to make the transition from Thinky-thinky to thinky-feely, but I am not a touchy-feely person. Sorry, can't help it.

It's not that thinkers are unfeeling, but first and foremost, they're thinkers. Vivaldi was a thinker. So was Bach. Thinkers can write thrillers, but I have no interest, and probably less talent in that genre. No ideas, either. So it goes.

Listen, if you need 4,000 words, mostly redundant sentences, adverbs and a few adjectives, I have them for sale cheap.

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Fireworks and Water

We trekked into Boston via public transporation tonight for the Handel and Haydn concert at Symphony Hall. Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks and Water Music, also Bach's Orrchestra Suite No 3 and some Purcell.

Missed the train by milliseconds and had to wait 12 minutes for the next one in the 20 degree cold. Man reading Car and Driver across from me. Notice bare skin peeking out from gap in his cotton dress shirt. No undershirt, no sweater, just a storm coat, weird hat and gloves. He chewed his fingernails while he read.

On the green line, S.O. sits next to crazy woman: a) she has no teeth, b) she has a perfect witch profile, c) she talks to herself and everyone and d) she gets up twice and does a little dance. S.O. ignores, but the man sitting on the other side smiles gently which seems to make her happy.

Concert wonderful. Too many old folks, though. Classical music will die if we don't get young people to these concerts. Woman in vicinity has drenched herself with perfume. Doesn't smell bad, just too strong.

Harry Christophers conducts in a very vigorous manner, and sometimes weird and spastic and again dancing, almost, and I'm afraid he'll fall off his podium, but he doesn't. Orchestra stands for the entire concert except for cellists, etc.

Afterward, back onto the T except there are 300 people waiting after the performance and the train doesn't come for 15 minutes and when it does, it's almost full, so there's one of those tight situations when you become intimate with perfect strangers. At least nobody weird.

We catch the Red Line after a short wait. Middle aged couple in love across from us. Isn't love strange? Isn't it wonderful? And mysterious, too. No wonder so many books, movies, songs, and such are all about love. It hold on to the mystery.

Back home, and all is well. House still reeks of last nights Pan Seared Scallops in Ginger Broth. I can still smell the curry, the scallops and the ginger. Not unpleasant, but man does the odor hang around. Burned candles all afternoon which did nothing. Too freaking cold to open the windows.

Thisbe went out on the porch for 45 seconds today, and again for about 30 seconds. Saw a turtle dove and ran back inside. I don't know about her. What kind of a cat is afraid of birds? Remember, Friday is cat blog day.

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