Day 72: Get rid of...

"...unnecessary question marks, exclamation marks and parentheses."

"Unnecessary"....? Ok, that probably means "trying to hard to be impressive." I'll watch that.

28 days to go.

Day 71: Re-read your novel again...

"...and look just for the cliches. Cut: “one fell swoop,” “pretty as a picture,” “in my mind’s eye,” “right as rain.”"

Oh man, this is my problem: what are counted as "cliches" and what are not? I don't even know what "one fell swoop" or "right as rain" means...I know pretty as a picture is cliche though. I use different expressions. Actually, I don't like cliches and strive to avoid them. People should not see too many cliches in my story.

Day 69 & 70

69: "Go back and cut out one excessive metaphor or simile from each page. As F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, “You never cut anything out of a book you regret later.” "

70: "Cut out one adjective or adverb in each paragraph."

Yesterday I had to go father-son compout, but again I thought about the story.

I'm not sure what the guideline is referring to by saying cutting out excessive metaphors. They are not good? So we should never use them? And probably we should not use adjectives/adverbs either. I believe Steven King said something like "the road to hell is adjectives."

Day 68: Re-read your pages

"— one at a time — out loud to “hear” any awkward sentence structure."

Wow, you don't expect me to do it in a day, do you?

I did the 1st page, and then I changed a lot of things. This method seems cool.

Day 67: Do chunk editing.

"Cut away from the bone of the story. Go chapter by chapter and get rid of “all your darlings” as William Faulkner called excessive prose."

It means a big renovation, I guess. Cut to the bones and reconstruct. Is it?

Sigh. The problem is I never find so much time to do that. I do change the direction of the story off and on.

Day 66: Read the story

"Go back and read the whole novel from start to finish, noting lines and phrases that are awkward, but keep reading. Don’t bother to rewrite, not yet."

I did it yesterday....

And I added some stuff too cause my story is not complete yet.

Day 65: Editing your novel

"Now that you've been away from it for a while, it is time to start editing your novel. Before you start, remember what James N. Frey says in How to Write a Damn Good Novel; “Think of a climax as the target and the rest of your story as the flight of the arrow.” It is time to review the “flight.”"

Gee, two weeks already.

I've edited parts of my story. When you are away from your story and then read again, there will be some expressions make you think: "What was I thinking when I wrote that down? Was I high or something?"

Of course, there are some good parts too.