The Editing Process

I'm neck deep in the editing process and as any writer can tell you, it's a love/hate relationship. Love, because the hard part is over - writing. Hate, because now I have to take a good, long look at what I've created and decide what needs to stay, what needs to be cut and what needs to be reconfigured to make the story better. In some ways it's actually harder than the writing part.

The first round of editing is always kind of difficult for me because of how critical I have to be. When I write the first draft, I make a huge effort not to let my inner critic keep me from putting stuff on paper, otherwise I'd never get anything written. This part of the process requires me to give that inner critic free reign, to let her out and flex her muscles. She's a bit of a diva and tends to blow everything out of proportion, going off on tangents about how this scene doesn't make sense so I need to rewrite the whole book, or OMG this is terrible. Was I high when I wrote it?

Given how mentally and emotionally draining this part is, it's no wonder that I've been dreading the first round of edits. I've even paid bills to get out of having to edit and I hate paying bills. Sigh. Wish me luck. I'm off to tackle a few chapters before the end of the day.