Revisions Over Wine
On Sunday, Barton and I spent the afternoon revising a proposal, a fifty page proposal I might add. The weather was so gorgeous that we broke out a bottle of wine and sat on the back porch to read the entire fifty-pages aloud to each other including headings, subheadings and footnotes. While my husband read from his computer, I read from a hard copy attached to a clipboard, and we switched reading after each section or a few paragraphs. Why would we do such a thing?
Well, first of all, it was fun. Of course we are both writers, so any chance to read poetry or stories provides an opportunity to enjoy the texture of language. We poured over the words and how they weaved the story together.
Reading aloud also gave us time to weed out misspellings, forgotten words, inconsistent tenses and awkward phrases. We were able to collaborate together in a new way- do we really need a comma here? This word sticks out. That sentence just doesn't sound right. What if we…
Cleaning up grammar is my husband's forte, but here, we were both active participants in the revision process.
Realizing it will take longer than we think, we order a pizza to accompany the wine. When the pizza arrives, we now take turns so the other one can eat. We read late into the night, the flicker of citronella candles slowing the pace just slightly.
Once I take Barton's headpointer off so he can eat, I now type changes on his computer. I admit, my night-sight is starting to fade so I was hunt for letters on Barton's computer.
Only when we had finished did we realize how late it was. What an incredible afternoon!
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