Chuckle Off
Posted Fri, 12/17/10
It took me about two weeks to re-edit Book Three: The Twain Shall Meet from Collective Obsessions. The original document came in at 336 pages, with a word count of 137,236. After editing, I managed to slim it down to 317 pages and 131,185 words. This includes writing two new scenes, so all in all the process was a success. At this point, I can almost quote the entire manuscript verbatim.
I'm determined to give myself a night off before plunging into Book Four: Enthrallment. The text is already written, so the rest of my weekend and next week will be filled with more editing. Once consolation, though. Enthrallment only has 155 pages, at least for now.
As I spent time editing this afternoon, MSNBC was on the television. The news channel is my typical background noise. I eventually grew tired of the political party crossfire, so I switched over to the USA network after lunch. They were running a marathon of House. I didn't so much watch as listen, all the while working. Sometime this afternoon, the episode titled Merry Little Christmas from 2006 was broadcast.
Out of the blue, two lines from the show kept me in stitches for quite awhile:
Michael Tritter (David Morse): Merry Christmas.
Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie): And a Happy Go-to-Hell.
I'm not sure why the combined lines struck me funny, but they did. On and off for the rest of the day, they gave me pause for a good chuckle.