About Editing

Storm clouds over IONS Center near Petaluma, CA

I took a break from editing to attend Jean Houston's Mystery School in Petaluma last weekend.  She announced after 28 years, this will the last year for Mystery School.  I am privileged to be able to attend.

It's been a week since I last spent time on the book.   I find my hardest editing task is to decide to remove pages from the material.  I have no problem removing a line or two of mundane conversation that doesn't serve the storyline.  Last week I felt I needed to remove five pages from the Chapter titled Stunned.  It was not an easy decision.

I thought the pages were well written and I would even say the message they conveyed was powerful.  Yet they did not really continue the storyline and needed to be cut.  It was not easy to do so. 

You must understand I received most of this book as a dialogue from God, and he participates in this editing process.  As I prepared to delete the pages, God clearly let me know that he liked the pages, but did allow I better understood the storyline--he would trust me to edit the chapter.

Yep, I felt guilty doing so.  In fact I could not just delete the material releasing it out to cyberspace.  I carefully edited the material, cut it to a new file and saved it.  Just in case I change my mind.  Or I might more accurately say in case God changes my mind.

Two chapters have been added since I listed the Table of Contents.  Chapter 16 We Finally Meet and Chapter 17 which remains untitled for the moment.  These chapters bring the page count to 213. 

I will soon start on the final received chapter of 90 pages.

The Journey continues . . .