Editing is a slower process than the raw writing, it seems. I've been going through all the notes I've gotten from friends for a few days now, reworking parts of the chapter. It is reassuring, I suppose, that there seems to be a consensus on those parts that need to be re-worked. Usually it's the complexity of my sentence structures that is the enemy. I seem to think – and express myself – in ideas that are the integrated sum of a variety of points. This habit or skill may help me as an historian – it's all about making connections, after all – but in communication this is not so helpful. So it seems counter-intuitive to me to try to break up my ideas into a series of smaller sentences that possess greater clarity, even if they flow well, one to the other. It doesn't feel, at first, like the connected idea I'm trying to express.
Immediate goal for the future? Try to learn to think in paragraphs, and not sentences that try to express a paragraph's variety of thoughts. Finding Emily's note that read "Mike – have you ever stopped to read your sentences aloud? And not died of asphyxiation?" was particularly inspiring. :-) Of course I read them aloud: but since I know where the emphasis goes on the first try, theirs becomes a glorious rhetorical complexity!
One more wonderful thing about having a 24" screen: not having to switch back and forth from one Word document to another: I've got my own text on the right and four annotated versions from friends on the left, so that I can see and compare all their criticisms and suggestions at once while working on my own draft. A small, not-terribly-technical benefit, perhaps, but a welcome one.
