quick status report (aka, greetings from New Jersey, once again!)

I left Ithaca later than intended because of a passing thunderstorm. Then I hit abominable construction a couple times between Binghamton and Scranton, but once darkness fell the roads mostly cleared out and I was able to make good time. Then I had a minor kerfuffle when I couldn't make a bunch of lights turn on in my parents' living room and feared a fuse had blown, but it turned out to just be two burnt-out bulbs -- not surprising when they'd been left on for weeks straight! -- so all is well.

I had a frozen pizza and white wine for very late dinner and am now waiting for my pajamas to finish drying, after which I will go straight to bed. Mmm, sleep.

(On the less fortuitous side, Vicky has yet to get back to me with the edits for my NFE fic, which she said she'd do today. Oh well, she has a busy life and job. I will send her a reminder tomorrow and cross my fingers. *thinks productive thoughts*)

trust and respect are very important in an editing relationship :-)

The problem with getting Vicky to edit my stories is that because we grew up together and have been reading each other's attempts at fiction for over twenty years now, she knows exactly where I habitually cut corners and is wise to all my handwaving, and because she is my sister she is merciless about pointing out all the places I can and should be doing better. (Not merciless in a cruel way! She just doesn't sugarcoat, because we both know not to take each other's editing personally.)

This is also why Vicky is my best editor -- she won't let me get by with slapdash work -- but eesh, I have such a lot of fixing to do on my NFE fic now.

*opens Word documents, begins strategizing*

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ETA: And finished! I ended up highlighting a theme that had been in the background, adding a new background theme to make sense of an action near the end of the story, fiddling some dialogue to make character ages and motivations clearer, adding some general descriptive passages, and being a cruel and capricious god (aka, making some bad things worse). The basic structure of the story remains the same, but the meaning of certain actions is a little different, and hopefully it's a bit more immersive third-person and less dust-dry reserve.