Editing process, an internal Monologue V. 2.0

I’ve been sorta MIA, stuck in the land of editing, and though that is not exactly a fulfilling land, I can’t seem to break out of it. I need to keep at it. I need to finish.

Strange thing is, with each second spent editing I find more and more stuff TO edit.

The internal monologue changes each time. Edit number one seems tough, and, in a way, it is. You re-read and think, boy, I USE this word a lot. I need to expand my vocabulary. You catch some stupid continuity mistakes and you go, oh, I’m glad I caught this one before sending it to everyone else. You cut out some repetitions and think, I’m really cleaning this up nice.

And then, you send it to someone else.

Every writer should be lucky enough to have someone in their life (or, in my case, more than one person), who can read over your stuff and go: “This is crap. You need to rewrite it.”

It won’t be what you want to hear, of course. And it will suck, I’m not saying it won’t. But it’ll make you better. Your critique partners might not always be right. But they’ll make you think. And the thinking, that will make you better.

So, edit number two is going sorta like this:

I could have SWORN I’d gotten rid of all repetitions. How come I’ve used this exact same word 396 times in my manuscript??

::reads more::

And this …how did I write this? IT’S A TOTAL CONTRADICTION. My character can’t be saying THIS if he’s going to be saying the exact OPPOSITE in two chapters. UGH. I seriously did not think this through. 

::continues reading::

This is boring as hell. NOTHING IS HAPPENING. WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG TO MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN? Oh, God, no. I’m going to have to cut this. And this. And that. And write more. A lot more. Oh, crap. Why did I ever think writing a novel was easy? WHY? WHY?

Sort of. Kind of. Exactly like that.