Beda: Day 21: My Editing Process.

I never knew how exactly hard yet easy it was going to be to edit a novel.  I mean I've written things before and reworked them and gone back and cringed at old work I had sitting on the internet, but revising this is an entirely new ballgame. 

First of all, it's not something I can just do on my computer.  I actually had to print it out so it was easier to read and see what changes I wanted to make.   Mostly because if I don't agree with these changes later, I don't have to make them and I can throw the draft out.   And by throw out, I do mean recycle because that would a lot of paper to just waste on putting in the wrong bin.   Seriously this manuscript is over 60 pages.

It's easy in the fact that this doesn't really feel like my work.  I can critique at a distance and put the much needed edits into it.   Which is something I never thought I would be able to do.   I'm typically more assured in my work than that and it's often not till several years later when I'm bored and decided to have a read at some of my old work that I realize how much I could have used an edit button.   I truly mean that.   But no, that part is actually going remarkably great.   I'm also not at that point where everything is total crap, like writers often go through.  I just I have the distance and that's what I needed.

It's hard in the fact that it is very technically time consuming.  I often have to read paragraphs or sentences over again because I'm not sure how they feel.   I have to mull them around.   And that's a little bit frustrating.   As someone who virtually has a judgment on something the second she is presented with it, this mulling process is fairly long and laborious.   And that maddens me a little bit.   For the past two days I've been editing on and off and I've only gotten through 8 pages.   Not even 8.   Like 7 and 3/4.   And that was only the first two chapters.   There are at least like 20 Chapters in the whole thing.   I don't exactly remember. 

This manuscript has all the words I wrote and I'll always be incredibly proud of that, but I'm really glad I'm taking this time to make it better.   To see what else to do with it.  And I think this is making me a better writer.   I can see what works for me and what doesn't.   And no, I'ven't finshed the novel for this year.   It's still on my list of things to do, but I work best under pressure and I wrote this novel in November, maybe I'll write all my novels via NaNoWriMo.

Maybe in November when NaNoWriMo comes around I'll have to blog about how well things are going without giving any details away because then I'm never motivated to finish.   And I'm determined to write a novel this year.   Again.   Because I like writing.   And While I love doing blogposts, my heart is with the fiction.