Veracity. That is not necessary a term associated with editing a novel, yet, I'd like to take that linguistic pass into the red zone for a socio-literary touchdown.
First to the editing part of “veracity”. As you can see I love to work in paper during editing and in this version I added a sentence with a word I only knew in German, and after immersing myself into the English language for quite a while I was surprised I couldn't translate it right away, in which case I draw that line there and write the German word on top: “Wahrheitsgehalt”.
Later I looked it up. “Veracity”. And penned it in for the correction later on the computer. So far so good.
I instantly googled the word, because I felt like I never heard it before. Never. In over 20 years of English. A word I came across about three times a week in my German life, a very common word, I had not heard in English (CBC news & radio, Late Night Shows, daily life, etc.).
At least it was a common word in German. I don't know, nowadays, maybe this word, this character-side of content (articles, media posts, press releases, speeches...) isn't en vogue anymore. Reality gives me that impression. I mean, who really cares anymore?
I am not saying I know all English words, but I know which one I heard or read before. Veracity not—what renders me somewhat shocked right now.
And “accuracy” or “correctness” are merely cute distant cousins of “veracity”, they don't count.
Or I just drink too much coffee. It is my landing approach drink to writing. So there is always an empty cup nearby, and there is no script without coffee stains. None. It starts with the smell, wonderful, and a nice memory of my childhood when my grandma took me grocery shopping (we walked), and we entered a coffee shop to buy beans, where they ground them fresh—that smell. That feeling of a loved childhood.
I love my chair, too, but it really gets a beating over this year working on this novel. Tape is our friend. For how long I can't say but for the chair it does its job.
These are 300 pages, 18 out of 24 chapters, already corrected in the script file—except those little sticky notes. They spell “April 2022”. I need at least a month for those guys, and I also tackle the last unused notes that used to cover the wall (pictured in earlier blog posts). Yes, used to be, the few left I took off, and in a quasi-ritual notion I painted my room “Dancing Green”.
I end on that image.