Know what kinds of mistakes you commonly make, then write them into a list.  It's not foolproof, but it makes a good, quick revision checklist that can save time on the initial once over.  For me, it is:

* it's instead of its
*their instead of there or they're
*Overuse of the word just

And so on.  By knowing and actively looking for the mistakes I most often make, it saves me a lot of time on revising, both during the process and by teaching myself to naturally edit while I write without interrupting my creative flow.

Hello thar.  Anyone mind giving a rough, short fic (one page long) of mine a quick beta-ing?  It's a response to the writing challenge on the TPBoD, a sort of alternate or continued ending, so said beta would probably need to have played Kingdom Hearts, especially COM and KHII.


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The first thing he realizes upon waking is that he feels old.

The second thing he realizes is that he feels old.  It’s not just the crammed joints and the weariness that tugs plaintively at his muscles whispering to him, it’s the sensation one experiences when having a particularly long, drawn out dream. The tension and futility mounting and tightening for echelons upon echelons of the same scenes, the same failures, the same soft-edged trees over and over again,  the taste of instinctual panic worn dry over your tongue, to come to a half past midnight in a cold sweat because the coffee in your gut has run its natural course.  The relief is but a half-second flicker, because it’s only a dream, after all, and then it’s gone, and you have to use the bathroom. 

Everything about you feels small and insignificant, because for all that fear and fuss you’ve only been asleep a few hours.  Only been living so many years.

Even’s bathroom is small and cluttered and recognizable.  There isn’t any need to flip on the lightswitch.

It wasn’t a dream.  This is the third thing.




The hissing, choked sound of water rapidly evaporating and spouting out over grounds echoes through Even’s apartment.  Thirty seconds after he starts the pot (against better judgment, which he supposes has never stopped him before)  it dies.  Without looking he raps his knuckles against the top, and it gurgles back to life with all the severity and nonchalance of a bout of sleep apnea.

His back and neck feel sore.  An eventual shower beckons, since it’s apparent that he’s been sleeping in his day clothes, which are now are wrinkled and ill-fitting on his limbs, closer inspection revealing a tidy row of pale, red button imprints marking their way down his chest from sleeping on his stomach.   

Armed with a mug of steaming coffee cradled in two sets of long fingers, Even sits down on his couch, the lights still out.   His living room is a portrait of blues, unmoving and untouched, the artist a bit too heavy-handed with the palette knife on the edges of things.  The television in the corner is soft with a blanket of fine dust; though he isn’t sure if that’s indicative of how much time has passed; he doesn’t remember ever bothering to clean it before losing his heart. 

The coffee only burns his tongue a little. 

A blue moon is shining outside his window.  He can see it in his coffee.  It should bring forth images of Saix, of madness and a jagged scar, eyes ablaze one final time as the blunt edge of a claymore slams into him. 

Instead he hears fickle, youthful laughter.   He smells bitter tea and crisp, white pages.   He tastes something charred and gamey, dulled by sweet, burning alcohol.  He feels rumbling under his feet, a pacifying, heavy hand on his shoulder.

He sees-

The memories snarl and explode alongside so many other things in his head, like small children crowding and vying for attention; endless questions is he whole again?, improbabilities how could I travel off world without darkness?, worries he may be a decent human being now, logical arguments you were a Nobody for Power’s sakeand emotions that are finally in him, not beside him, and absolute. 

I want... 

Reaching inside the back pocket of his slacks, fingertips searching for the cool touch of stone, Even only grasps lint. 

He isn’t Vexen.  This much is certain.  Though he may not be quite the same man who sat and sipped far too many cups of coffee here on this unwelcomingly stiff, brown leather couch so many years before he decided he detested the color of roses. 

Because he’s smiling.  It’s barely there, curving his lips in the tiniest of arcs.  A white, impressionist upstroke.

Even  puts down his coffee, irritably finding no coaster and settling for a thin pamphlet left over from some long ago project that had momentarily caught his interest, picks up a pad of paper with the faded, gray and daisy yellow fountain logo of Radiant Garden’s telephone company stamped all across its pages and one of the stray pens littering his coffee-table. 

He is going to need a bottle, and an ocean.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (01-05-2010 12:20:37 AM)