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Revisions Over Wine

October 6, 2008 on 7:57 am | In 2008, Megan Cutter, Writing | No Comments

On Sunday, Barton and I spent the afternoon revising a book proposal that we are sending to a publisher in New York. The weather was so gorgeous that we broke out a bottle of wine and sat on the back porch to read the entire fifty-page book proposal 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 would switch 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 two Creative Writing majors, 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 both active participants in the revision process.

We read over pizza and wine, now taking turns so the other one could eat. We read late into the night, the flicker of citronella candles slowing the pace just slightly. I admit, my night-sight is starting to fade so typing changes on Barton’s computer did take some concentration, as I was hunting for letters in the soft light.

Only when we had finished did we realize how late it was. Feeling like we had done the best we could, we zipped the revision to our contact in New York. What an incredible afternoon!