All fired up again

I know that editing is a major part of any writing process - whether it's in my writing at the newspaper, working on my novel or short stories or whatever. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I've learned throughout this process that I am a much more efficient writer than I am an editor, from the standpoint that my writing is a more free-flowing thing. I can hammer it out and get it down and it's out there. Editing is completely different, as I'm reading over sentences and paragraphs over and over trying to get them to flow and fit.

I buried myself in editing marks and slashes and lines pulling words and fragments this way and that, and I started to think it was hopeless. That this stupid WIP wasn't going to amount to anything, and that I wasted the better part of the last year trying to dress up a dog turd.

Then I took a step back. Worked on other things: Wrote a couple of short stories, bounced other ideas around my head for other novels, etc.

After I finished my first draft, I took roughly six weeks off to completely separate myself from it. Once I dove back into it, I fell in love with it again and did a lot of work on the editing front. I got frustrated with editing because I wanted it to be as free-flowing and easygoing as my writing had been. That's just not the case.

I took another breather, and it's given me a whole other wind to work on it. This re-write and round of edits is going much, MUCH better than the last one, that's for sure. Now I know what to expect and I'm ready for it. I just hope my WIP is ready for it, too.

I'm not saying that this is what every writer should do, but I am saying that it certainly helped me.

Patience is not one of my virtues. But I'm going to have to learn to use it if I want to seriously become a writer.