{"id":921,"date":"2018-06-12T12:37:18","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T16:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/?p=921"},"modified":"2018-06-12T12:37:18","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T16:37:18","slug":"the-agony-and-ecstasy-of-proofing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/the-agony-and-ecstasy-of-proofing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Agony and Ecstasy of Proofing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of my writer friends hate to edit\/proof. Some love it. I’m in the latter category – I love it. \u00a0I love reading for the flow of language. I love revising sentences and word choices until my writing partner finally told me, “You will never be done. You have to let it go.”<\/p>\n

So yesterday I let it go. I am sure another close read would bring another round of changes, additions, deletions, and the discovery of new flaws. But I think I have let it go. If this is the form in which my manuscript goes to press, I am sure I will agonize about things I have somehow overlooked. But today I let it go.<\/p>\n

I want to wave goodbye to my manuscript like I waved goodby to my daughter \u00a0when I dropped her \u00a0off at college thinking, “I’ve done my best as a mom and now I gift the world with this amazing creature who has become her own person.” \u00a0My daughter is an extraordinary woman. Letting her go was about the natural change of relationship from parent\/child to parent\/adult. Her autonomy means her continued growth and change is now entirely her purview.<\/p>\n

Not so much with a book. Once you let it go it no longer changes, grows, or improves. \u00a0It is finished. Every flaw is captured in amber. Fixed. Oh-my-oh, there is now nothing for it. As a writer, that is both the ecstasy and the agony. So in that spirit I offer another snippet of my story:<\/p>\n

“My name is Connie Lee Tuttle, but you can call me slumgullion.<\/p>\n

During the War, my mom worked as a ship welder and burner building ships for the U.S. Navy in Portland, Oregon. The day before payday, my mom and her neighbors dumped all their leftovers into a common pot and heated it up for dinner. They called it slumgullion. You might see peas swimming with tomatoes, meatloaf un-chunked into small meatballs, macaroni noodles with the cheese dissolving into the larger broth. Sometimes, I hear, it was tasty. Sometimes, merely tolerable. But always, always, it was a party. Hard times transformed by laughter and food.<\/p>\n

So call me slumgullion because I, too, am made up of bits and pieces thrown together. I am part French, part German, part Southern, part army brat, part mother, part daughter, part sister, part lesbian. Call me slumgullion because sometimes my story is tasty, a meal for the senses. Unexpected. Graceful. And sometimes it is merely edible, offering up only what is necessary to survive. And you can call me slumgullion because my life, my theology, my story is always transformed by sharing food and making community.”<\/p>\n

<\/em>-from\u00a0A Gracious Heresy: the queer calling of an unlikely prophet<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of my writer friends hate to edit\/proof. Some love it. I’m in the latter category – I love it. \u00a0I love reading for the flow of language. I love revising sentences and word choices until my writing partner finally told me, “You will never be done. You have to let it go.” So yesterday … Continue reading The Agony and Ecstasy of Proofing<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,17,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":929,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions\/929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}