I suffer from verbosity. Here's an ironic example, an actual line from
Confessions:
She tried to prune her words to a bare minimum--the sooner he tired of her dull company, the sooner she could escape the disturbing intensity of his eyes.
Hello!?! "She tried to prune her words to a bare minimum," needs serious trimming. Why not just say, "she pruned her words." Ah, the simplicity.
I have so many ticks. I love to write things like, "she felt his hands begin stroking her thighs," instead of "his hands stroked her thighs," and then there is the dreaded "seemed."
All the years of self-denial, all the elaborate barriers she had constructed to contain her emotions, suddenly seemed like flimsy paper creations that one strong breeze could blow away forever.
All the "she felt" and "she seemed" and "as if's" have got to go. Luckily, I have two amazing critique partners with big sharp shears who aren't afraid to go "snip snip." (I pictured
Martyn Jacques from the Tiger Lillie's singing those last two words--god I love him!)
But the hacking and slashing is almost finished and I'm sending it off today or tomorrow. So cross your fingers for me--soon I'll have feedback on
Confessions from industry professionals.
It's my poor, long-suffering sweetie's birthday tomorrow, and I haven't even bought him a present yet. I'm a bad girlfriend.
In China related news, my cat got all her shots, and a microchip, in preparation for the journey. I've never taken her with me before. She's going to love it. Guangxi is subtropical and the city I'm going to is right on the ocean so she'll get lots of fresh seafood and real sand in her litterbox.