The Sound Of Your Voice

Over the past week, I’ve completed my first run through edit of my manuscript. It no doubt took me longer than most people, but that has much to do with balancing a work and domestic life versus personal projects.

One thing that became painfully apparent was just how much aghast I was with some of the prose, and having the epiphany of wonder of how I could have written such a sentence or paragraph? — the occurrences of which I completely lost count. The only thing I can really compare it to is listening to the sound of your own recorded voice — something I also despise. Or perhaps seeing a video recording of yourself, which has, for most I would think, a visceral recoil effect of total embarrassment.

In large part, I think, that’s what writing is. I have said since the beginning of this project the goal is to write for myself. To write the kind of manuscript that I would want to read. Anyone who also enjoys it is almost secondary. Certainly my hopes are that some will, but I am well aware that it is not for everyone, and I’m certainly not looking for the end result to appeal to a general population. It is an adult work of fiction not intended for school children or even pre-teens, and certainly not for all adults either. My ‘target audience,’ for the lack of a better description, is meant for like-minded individuals looking for something relatively unpredictable and, hopefully, entertaining as well. My success or failure in the endeavor will be evaluated by them — not myself. My intention remains to put the work out there and, “see what happens.”

That being said, there’s a measure of naked strip-down by committing words to a page. A complete exposure of one’s thoughts or ideas, and because of this, there cannot help be a measure of trepidation that goes along with such a literary project — something I have thought about on more than one occasion since I began the editing process. Even though most have been supportive, there is still that incorporeal element that cloaks everything and can never be cleansed. Not that it should be — I simply must acknowledge that the spectre will always be with me; no doubt every writer as well.

For a status update, I have handed the edited manuscript off for proofreading. There never seems to be an end to the typos and changes in grammar and tense. Another casualty I discovered is that, while writing, we often are thinking a few sentences ahead, and what sometimes swimming in the gray matter isn’t necessarily transmitted to the fingers typing, but the most ominous aspect is the eye test. One can only read the same text on so many occasions until all of it, errors included, blend together and are cloaked in the great context of the work. The obvious isn’t so to the creator, and when it happens a new pair of eyes are required. This is the stage I currently find myself. It is my sincerest hope that in the upcoming months I can move on to the next stage of this unknown journey.