{"id":1881,"date":"2011-10-26T21:55:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T02:55:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-03-27T21:18:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T02:18:28","slug":"readings-in-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/2011\/10\/26\/readings-in-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Readings in the Park"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It’s part of my writing process.  Near the final editing stage, I print out a copy of the novel, take it to a nearby park, and then with pen in hand, sitting at a picnic table, I read it aloud.<\/p>\n

It takes several days.  My voice gives out after a couple of hours.  But I make many corrections.  Sometimes they are errors that I had missed during dozens of passes, editing on the computer screen.  Sometimes they are perfectly legal sentences, but I can’t speak them from beginning to end without tripping over my tongue.  Nearly all had also eluded the beta-readers than had send me marked up copies earlier.<\/p>\n

My personal stamina is about two hours, although if people drop by and I stop to chat, it can stretch out into a three hour session.  I know I absolutely have to have a big drink at hand to refresh my throat.  A session covers about fifty pages in final layout format.<\/p>\n

This novel, The Copper Room, is being read at Hutto Lake Park, which is close by.  Other times, I’ve read in other parks.  It’s a little windy the past couple of days, so I camp out in the pavilion next to the wall as a wind-break.  Every day, people stop by, so I have a little display that tells people what I’m doing.  Most times, I’ll find a convenient break in the text and talk with the visitors, but sometimes, they prefer to just sit and listen.<\/p>\n

I find it interesting how tired I get after reading the text for a couple of hours.  It’s not labor intensive, but perhaps it’s the process of putting emotion into the words.  I don’t really know.  It’s satisfying, even though it takes several days to work through an entire novel.<\/p>\n

I advertise where and when on my Facebook fan page<\/a> or on Twitter<\/a>, just in case people are interested.  Two more sessions to go, if you’re inclined to show up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s part of my writing process.  Near the final editing stage, I print out a copy of the novel, take it to a nearby park, and then with pen in hand, sitting at a picnic table, I read it aloud. It takes several days.  My voice gives out after a couple of hours.  But I… Continue reading Readings in the Park<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,119,81],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/9.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t90x-ul","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1883,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions\/1883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}