I've now taken 18,000 words out, putting me at 135k. I have a big cut coming up of around 5,000 words. This is one where I think it does hurt a bit, but not too bad. Cutting out any scene at this point hurts because I had a reason for putting them in there, but a least I'm getting rid of the ones with the weakest reasons.
When I'm done I'm only going to have scenes where pulling one out is going to make something else unravel. It should make for a fairly tight story. Still a lengthy plot, but all of it pretty focused.
This week I am *actually* going to work on my article and send it off to the journal I'm hoping will publish it. I've been putting it off for months because part of me thinks it's not good enough, but that's rubbish and I'm trying to ignore it. I need a publication, so I'm just going to go for it. The journal in question has a 'student perspectives' section that I'm more likely to get published in than anywhere else, so it's by no means impossible. I thought writing my intention down here might help with moving the project from theoretical to actual!
That does help sometimes, Seska. You can do it! Submit, submit!
To the journal, I mean.
Back in the 60's Asimov along with a number of other writers voted a pretty editor as the editor to whom "we would most like to submit".
I'm now down 23,000 words. So far the cuts aren't too bad. Maybe I can save a couple of scenes that I thought would hurt if they were removed.
Typo, what's your book about?
"Cooling a Fevered Planet: The U.S. role in solving the climate crisis". It is about the politics and economics of solving phasing out fossil fuels, dirty industrial processes, and destructive forestry, agriculture and land use.
The editor does not like the use of the term "U.S." and wants to substitute American, so it sounds less "governmental". The critique makes sense, but I'm not sure of use of the word "American" as a substitute, given that the book does not deal with Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil and all the other nations that are just as "American" as the U.S.
