I'm in the final editing stages of a book and one of the interesting things
about this (little about that process is interesting, I should add) is that
the ms. suffers from duplication and wordiness directly resulting from the
ease of cutting and pasting that word processing presents.
By being able to scavenge previous writings (both one's own and from the
web--shhh) it is possible (likely) to put together truly massive texts that
are internally a hodge podge of styles, perspectives, contents and so on.
I'm old enough to remember when getting the first draft out was the hard
part and enormously time consuming--including the physical process of
cutting pasting and typing. Doing the editing was relatively easy or left to
folks like editors (remember them).
Now, putting something together as a first draft is the easy and quick part;
actually putting out a final piece that has been properly
honed/distilled/edited is really hard and time consuming.
MG
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christoph Reuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: Why so long?
> Brad:
> > Dickens had
> > nothing on Microsoft! (I think both are paid by the word-count.)
>
> Yup, M$ bloatware is indeed an impressive reminder that "shorter is
> better!" ;-) (also concerning the contempt towards "readers"..)
>
> Chris
>
>
>
