Tidbits from My Editing Journey

Hi. Long time, no see. Yeah, I've been busy this month, with going away and a few other important events that took up a lot of my time. But I thought you might enjoy some little excerpts from my book, including a few funny goofs, and just nice descriptions that I thought to add.

Nice description #1:

When they left the tower, Gabby was surprised at the quiet of the streets. The farmers’ stalls had all been packed up and moved away, and the crowd had dwindled to a few lonesome watchmen, staring off into the darkness and looking for intruders that would never come.As the small group passed by one of them, Gabby snuck a peek at him. He wasn’t much older than Rayand, if at all, and he seemed practically dead on his feet. His eyelids fluttered drowsily as he leaned against the wall of a ramshackle shop, but he managed to clumsily wave them on before slumping down into a deep slumber. I wonder if the Lightstone guard felt the same way as him, she thought. Maybe he got assigned to a night shift and could barely keep his eyes open.The walk back to the tavern seemed to glide by senselessly as the stars began, one by one, to pierce through the smothering tapestry of the night sky. Houses, shops, and important city buildings all seemed to pass them by, one after another in a monotonous circle. Gabby’s eyelids began to droop. It was so pleasantly cool and breezy…so dark and peaceful… A slow, quiet murmur seemed to float in on the nighttime air from far ahead, slowly growing into a loud rumble of song, laughter, and loud banter. Oh, no. Not the Sword and Flagon already. Here I was, just beginning to relax.Under Alcasor’s lead, the party of three rounded a corner and burst into a patch of dappled light. The blazing lantern from the table sent out warm rays of light through the grimy window, piercing and stinging Gabby’s darkness-adjusted eyes.

I liked that one. I was metaphorical without seeming cheesy. Score! Two points for me!

Aaaaaand a funny goof for you, since I know you probably want a laugh. So, I was editing a scene in which my main character can't sleep, so she goes out to a garden for a walk. I was making some edits and cutting a few passages, and a few of the paragraphs came out like this:

Ugh. Now my entire room smells. She slammed the window shut. I think I need a nice walk to clear my head. Maybe after that I can get a few more hours of sleep.Directly outside, there was a little walled garden. The ground was covered in a soft blanket of lush green grass, and webbed with gravel pathways. Vibrantly colored flowerbeds were interspersed along with stone benches, and there was a fountain in the very middle. Someone must have left it on, and streams of water spurted from the shell designs on it, splashing into a pool in the bottom and distorting the once-clear reflection of the crescent moon above.Gabby took a seat on one of the benches.

Basically...Gabby wants a walk to clear her head. She's in a stuffy room on the upper floor of a tavern. Then I suddenly start describing a random garden outside, and apparently she teleported there while I wasn't looking. Yep. I accidentally cut the part where she walks down the stairs and out the door. >.<

I added it back in, and now here's the same part of the story again.

Ugh. Now my entire room smells. She slammed the window shut. I think I need a nice walk to clear my head. Maybe after that I can get a few more hours of sleep.Gabby clambered over her bed and slipped on her sandals. She quietly pulled the door to the hallway open and looked around. The tavern noise had subdued into a quiet murmur of activity, the most rambunctious revelers having staggered home to bed. She didn’t want to wake Rayand or Alcasor, so she stepped quietly past their rooms to the end of the hallway she hadn’t explored.It plunged steeply downward in a narrow staircase which led to a small back door. She hesitated only a moment before climbing down to it. Her footsteps creaked on the old wooden steps, but she didn’t hear the sounds of stirring from the upstairs rooms. She pushed the door open and stepped outside into a little walled garden.The ground was covered in a soft blanket of lush green grass, decorated with a spider web of small gravel pathways. Vibrantly colored flowerbeds and stone benches were interspersed along the web like dewdrops in the morning, and there was a fountain in the very middle, like the web’s beautiful crowning glory. Although it appeared to be broken, tiny droplets of water trickled out of the shell designs on the fountain’s center column. They fell into the partially full basin and created ripples stretching slowly outward in perfect circles, making the image of the brilliant stars above contort and realign with an unearthly sparkle. 

Isn't that so much nicer? The one downside to it? Gabby no longer has epic teleportation powers. :(

I think I should probably stop this post here because who knows how long it would be otherwise? Anyway, editing is going well.

~ Sophia-Rose