Tag: revision

Revised: Our Spot Behind the World

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I wrote this short story back in July of last year, in a single day, if I remember correctly. Back then I took pride in starting a text and uploading it by the end of the day; nowadays, particularly when it involves writing my current novel, I revise the text until I can’t think of anything to change. I have become hardcore like that.

I remembered the aforementioned short story from last year fondly; I consider it one of the best I’ve written in the last couple of years. However, when I reread it a few days ago, I found it in an appalling state: the text was chock-full of redundancies, awkward writing and broken English. In general, an embarrassing mess. I apologize to everyone who read it back in the day.

I’m working afternoons this week. I have decided to spend a few hours revising the short story to a state that at least today feels good enough, and that doesn’t make me groan in despair. It managed to make me tear up a bit, so the emotional core remains there. However, if you find any mistake and you care enough about the matter, please tell me.

Whenever I thought about this story, The Clientele’s beautiful song “K” more often than not played in my mind. That’s the song I always associate, incidentally, to my favorite manga series ever, Inio Asano’s Oyasumi Punpun.

Bottom line: if you enjoyed this story back in the day, you should read it again through the link down below. If you have no clue what story I’m talking about, I’m presenting to you 4,667 words of a new self-contained story that doesn’t contain any of my usual silliness and nonsense. Just read it.

Link here: Our Spot Behind the World.

Revised: ‘We’re Fucked, Pt. 60’

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I’m afraid that when I uploaded this chapter last night, I befouled the writer-reader contract: I hadn’t finished writing the final version. After I spent most of the afternoon working on it, I figured that I would complete it shortly after dinner, but I ended up revising the text until midnight although I have to wake up at six to go to work. By then, my brain refused to cooperate. I knew that if I didn’t at least upload what I had produced up to that point, I would spend the following morning annoyed and revising the text in my head, so I uploaded the incomplete text, which I’ve continued polishing a bit at the office.

Anyway, I’ve spent another hour working on it at home today. Unless I’ve missed one of those errors that a writer’s brain becomes unable to notice until the final revision weeks or months later, I’d say that this chapter is done.

Read it here: We’re Fucked, Pt. 60

I’m quite fond of the face-off against the bunnyman. One of my favorite recent chapters. It has kept me amused at work the few times I’ve reread it. That’s why I write in general, to amuse myself, but also to liven up (I wouldn’t say improve) the day of the few people who have told me they enjoy my stuff.

Maybe because it was somewhat rabbit-tangential, this whole nonsense reminded me of one of my favorite poems, the otherwise sasquatch-themed ‘Sasquatch Goddess’, which I wrote in June of last year.

Revised: ‘Interspecies Misdemeanours’

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A few days ago I thought about this long short story / short novella (9,794 words) that I wrote back in July of last year. I was very fond of it. However, as it happened to all my short stories that I uploaded back then, I had refused to separate the paragraphs, because doing so would hamper the final process of putting together an ebook that contained the short stories. Whether or not the spaces between the paragraphs would have been a significant issue, I was dumb to sacrifice the legibility of my entries on WordPress in favor of the annoying ebook product; after all, I have only managed to sell a single copy of my previous novel in English.

So I started rereading this novella with the intention of formatting it properly. However, I found it in a rather appalling state prose-wise. I think that back then I got such a rush out of uploading an entry before the workday ended that I cut corners to an extent that I now consider disgusting. If you read my stuff a year ago, I apologize for the annoyances this previous mindset of mine may have caused. Anyway, this task to format the novella properly turned into a full-blown revision.

For those who didn’t come across this story back in the day, it’s about a trio of somewhat idiotic teens that see a UFO in their neighborhood. I had a lot of fun writing it, and remains one of the stupidest stories I’ve ever come up with. If you enjoyed it back in the day, I have improved it enough that you may want to revisit it.

Revised and expanded: This Is Not a Good Story

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Back when I was revising my latest full novel, My Own Desert Places, I rearranged all my free verse poems into three distinct books, so in the future I could upload them as ebooks to online retailers. Whenever I feel like it, I’ve been going through the poems contained in the first of those books, to update their punctuation, revise them and expand them if possible.

This time I had to handle my free verse poem slash short story This Is Not a Good Story, about a guy who meets a sad girl. As I was rereading it, my impression was something like, “What the hell is this? Why did I think this was good enough to upload?”

My standards have grown, so stuff I wrote just a few months ago doesn’t satisfy me anymore. Apart from that, I think I derived significant satisfaction from starting a poem soon after I got to the office and managing to “finish” it just as I was about to leave, which infused the otherwise pointless workday with meaning. Nowadays I’d rather continue improving the piece after I get home.

In any case, I removed around 600 words of the original version of This Is Not a Good Story, then I added like 800 new ones. I’m quite proud of the current version.

If you, stranger reading these words right now (can you hear my voice echoing in your head?), read the original version of this poem back in July and enjoyed it, I think you should read it again, because it’s like a whole new thing.

Link to the updated poem: This Is Not a Good Story

Revised: ‘A Ghastly Scar’

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When I was revising my latest full novel, I rearranged all the free verse poetry I ever wrote (because I only tried my hand at it for the first time back in May, I think) into three books that some day I’ll format into ebooks, so I can upload them on online retailers and beg people to buy them.

I have been going through all the poems contained in the first of those books, to revise them, update the punctuation and expand them if necessary. This time I handled ‘A Ghastly Scar’, a heartfelt piece about a girl I used to know back in middle school.

To my horror, the previous version of this poem was a mess. I’ve had to edit nearly every sentence. I don’t know whether I’ve improved that much since July or I hurried up to upload the poem before I had to leave the office. In any case, I’m happy with the updated version.

Link to the updated poem: A Ghastly Scar

Revised: ‘The Princess of the Gutter’

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Back when I was revising my latest full novel (first in English), I rearranged all my poetry into three books, because I intended to upload them to online retailers as ebooks eventually.

I have been going through each of the poems contained in the first of those books, to revise them, update their punctuation and expand them if seemingly necessary. This time I had to handle my poem ‘The Princess of the Gutter’, about my experiences failing to keep jobs and ending up hanging out at a center for adults with disabilities.

I had uploaded this poem in a worse state than I expected, so it has required a significant revision. However, I only expanded it by a couple of sentences.

Link to the updated poem: The Princess of the Gutter

Revised: ‘The Cleaning Crew’

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Some time ago I rearranged all my poetry into three distinct books, and I’ve been going through the poems contained in the first of those books to revise them and expand them if possible. The idea is to format the books into ebooks so I can upload them to online retailers.

This time I handled my small poem ‘The Cleaning Crew’, in which for the most part I merely recounted what happened and what I thought about it. I started writing it that day, a couple of minutes after I returned from the bathroom.

Apart from updating the punctuation, it was a routine revision: remove a few words here and there, improve some of the remaining words, rearrange a few sentences.

Link to the updated poem: The Cleaning Crew

Revised: ‘A Pair of Old Dogs’

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Some time ago I arranged all my poetry into three distinct books, which in the future I intend to format into ebooks to upload them to online retailers, although nobody will buy them. I guess it serves as a distraction.

I have been going through the poems contained in the first of those books to revise them, update their punctuation (for some reason I used to think that I shouldn’t use periods when writing poetry) and expand them if I see the opportunity.

This time I worked on my poem ‘A Pair of Old Dogs’, about me taking a stroll after playing the guitar in the woods. I only had to delete a few words, improve others, and of course update the punctuation. I think this is a nice little poem that works well.

Anyway, this is the link to the updated poem: A Pair of Old Dogs

Revised: ‘I Was Born a Unicorn’

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After the long struggle to revise my beloved first novel in English, ‘My Own Desert Places’, I formatted it into an ebook and got it uploaded to Amazon and other online retailers. So far is has sold a total of one copies, which gives me such a warm feeling.

As I was revising that novel, I also got busy rearranging all the poetry I have written into three distinct books. I have been going through the poems contained in the first of those books to revise them and update their punctuation. In some cases I’ve taken advantage of the opportunity to expand them significantly, whether because I’ve grown enough as a writer, or because I was too hasty in considering them done back then.

Anyway, this time I revised my poem ‘I Was Born a Unicorn’, about how I ended up getting diagnosed with high-functioning autism (formerly Asperger’s). I just added a few lines on top of the routine revision. It didn’t suffer any major issues.

Link to the updated poem: I Was Born a Unicorn

Revised: ‘Spider Commander Versus Dinosaur-Monkey’

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I’ve been busy revising the messiest scenes of a novel I mostly wrote back in May of this year, because I intend to publish it as an ebook. Meanwhile, I’ve also rearranged all my poems into three distinct books that I’ll also upload some day. I’m going through the poems contained in the first of those poetry ebooks, to revise them and sharpen them and also expand them if necessary.

This time I had to handle the poem that received the most likes on my WordPress site. To be honest, I don’t think it deserves that accolade. I’m not sure how it happened. But it was a thick, heartfelt text that didn’t need to be expanded. I mainly sharpened it and in particular fixed the punctuation; the lack of periods made it far messier before.

In any case, the link is below:

Spider Commander Versus Dinosaur-Monkey