Editing sucks. A lot. And I don't know if I even have the skills to write what I picture, anyway.

First of all, I agree with Amy that you might want to let your book rest a little more before you try editing it.

As for writing what you picture...well, skills can grow. A mememe story--when I first started doing this seriously back in 2001, everyone who read my work routinely told me they couldn't picture what I was writing. The characters were interesting and the writing was solid, but give us more details, please, especially more visual details. Four years later, I routinely get comments on how vivid, and especially how visual, my writing is! And while I've certainly tried to improve, I'm always surprised by the compliments, because I still think my writing is on the sparse end when it comes to sensory details. Someone will say, "Wow, this is vivid! I could just taste the dust from the road," and I'm thinking, "But all I did was say it was a hot day, and that my heroine was breathing the dust of thousands of marching feet and tramping hooves." Or they'll say, "Wow, that scene by the fire is so visual," and I think, "But all I said was that when he looks up from reading the poem, she's at the very edge of the firelight staring raptly at him--you filled in all the bits about what the firelight would look like flickering on her fair skin and suchlike yourselves."

Which is all a longwinded way of saying you improve with practice, and sometimes, apparently, much more than you realize.

Visual details don't come naturally to me. I can do stage direction well, but trying to describe the mental movie is a struggle. When I go back and try to add things, it always feels like padding.

ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssLUT

Ah, truth in advertising.

Stage direction always feels clunky to me on first draft, and sometimes on second and third. The thing that intimidated me the most when I got the idea for the wip was I knew it'd have several important action sequences, and hence much stage direction, while the first book was much more about people strolling and riding about pastoral English countryside being talky meat.

As for the visual/sensory stuff, I feel like what I've somehow accidentally figured out is how to tap into people's existing store of mental images and say just enough to make them flesh out the picture themselves. Because I'm certainly not painting word pictures or anything of the sort. But I don't know how I'm doing it. Not that I'm going to lose any sleep over it, as long as it's working.

And I don't know if I even have the skills to write what I picture, anyway.

Yes, you do. Your problem at the moment is with placement of scene, and a tendency to let your protagonist think instead of having her act.

Small stuff. The language? You've got that.

Thanks. I expect a lot from myself, is all.

Wow. I'm just getting home and caught up after two weeks, but just, wow. You people? You sure can write.

Lalalalalalalalala monday lalalalalalala new challenge lalalalala....

Eager? Me?

Heh. Lookit Ms. Impatient Pants Deb!

Fellow drabblers, this is a monumentous occasion -- this weekly drabble challenge is #52. We've been at this for 1 year, a year that has yielded some kick-ass writing, and, I hope, motivation for them that needed it to return to writing, to move forward on a project, or to start writing regularly. You all ROCK. Hard.

As for the current challenge....

Challenge #51 (heaven and/or hell) is now closed.

I'm craxy busy at work, so Challenge #52 is another Random Photo challenge, from the Look At Me photos. You have 10 choices, linked below, and you may write a drabble about each, or several drabbles about the same one, or several drabbles about more than one -- whatever tickles your writing fancy.

When you post your drabble(s), please include a link to the picture, for easy reference on the part of the reader. Thanks!

Picture One.
Picture Two.
Picture Three. (This might be the same dude from the picture w/the two women, on the couch.)

Note -- this one is kind of grim, featuring a coffin w/body inside: Picture Four.
Picture Five.
Picture Six.
Picture Seven.
Picture Eight.
Picture Nine.
Picture Ten.

Next week, I'll try to cook up something good for the 1-year anniversary drabble.