Editing: The Big Picture

I am at That stage of writing my novel: Editing.

You either love editing or hate it.

It is taking your words and ideas and refining them. It is looking at the forest after you’ve spent months in the weeds. It’s hard. It’s painful. But it can be exciting too — you might find that the scene you slaved over reads smoothly and adds so much to your story. Or you might discover a clever turn of phrase you hardly remember writing.

I love editing the work of other authors, but sometimes editing my own work can be downright depressing.

If you would like to read a free version of this post, you’ll find it on my website.

When I wrote the last words of my manuscript I thought I was done, boy was I wrong! I have been very fortunate. I’ve had books which just flowed out of me and needed very little editing.

The book I’m working on now is exactly the opposite. I’ve spent one and a half times as long writing this book than I normally do, and as I’m reading it through I’m finding so much that simply needs to be rewritten or fixed.

This is is closer to what I actually look like.

Yeah, this baby isn’t close to being finished. Here are some of the biggest problems I’m finding:

Timeline. I had to create an actual calendar to make sure my timeline was correct and logical.