Almost There

In the past three weeks, I had been working late nights to edit my aunt’s stories about our family. I wanted to turn it into a web book similar to Vietnamese Typography. I wanted to add old photos as well as profile information for the characters in her stories, which included my mother’s parents and her siblings.

Although I volunteered to put the website together, my main focus was on editing. I had been blogging on this site for 20 years, but it was the first time that I edited someone else’s work. It was a daunting task to edit both English and Vietnamese. What I looked for were spelling errors, cutting down repeated sentences to make the flow better, and consistency—particularly in English to keep the stories in past tense.

I had the impression that when my aunt wrote these stories, she wanted to get the words from her head to the page. As a result, she didn’t pay much attention to the technical part of writing. As an editor, I came to her stories from a fresh perspective; therefore, I had an easier time to spot the errors. I had learned quite a bit editing someone’s writing, but I don’t enjoy it as much as writing.

In addition to editing the stories and designing the website, I wrote an epilogue. I wish I could share the entire book, but it was intended as a family project. I will share my piece on this blog.

The final draft is almost finished. I just wanted to get it done so I can get back to my normal routine and catching up on sleeping. I had a booster shot yesterday and my arm is sore.