Editing Required

I finished another short story! The satisfaction of finishing hasn’t worn off yet - I wonder if it ever does. Has anyone asked a big name author that yet? If you know of an interview where someone answers that question, let me know in the comments! I’m pretty jazzed about finishing another one.

Here’s the thing though - while I typed ‘the end’ (I didn’t actually, I find it too cheesy for myself) I’m not actually finished with the story. Now it’s time for DUN DUN DUN

EDITING.

And I haven’t yet finished editing a piece. I don’t know if there’s a satisfaction there or not. And while I’m fairly good at editing other people’s pieces, I’m finding it more difficult to work on my own. Part of it is distance, I know. I recently entered a ‘Best First Page’ contest and found some work I had forgotten I had written. They were all rewrites of the first page of a novel I’ve been banging my head against for years. I reread them, and wow, some were a lot better than they had seemed when I wrote them. Others not so much.

But they still needed some editing! I don’t know why, even with the time and distance I had trouble. I’ve just never conditioned myself to do a lot of editing. In college, I wrote as clean a draft as possible, ran a spell check, tweaked a few sentences and called it a night. Bam. A.

That’s not going to work now. I must defend myself - Stephen King says he also tries to write as clean a draft as possible. And his word count per day seems to match mine (if I had as much time to dedicate). But even the greats require editing. I’m not great, so I DEFINITELY require editing.

Writing is becoming more and more familiar. More comfortable to let the words flow. That’s what practice and consistency get you. So that’s what I’ll do with my editing. May my muse have mercy.

Got any good/fun editing tips for me? Leave them for me in the comments!