Editing

I love to write. I have worlds upon worlds and dozens of characters and situations flowing through my creative mind. Sometimes it’s too much to write everything down and flesh each one out into a full story. The elite few that do make it to the status of WIP and eventually full story, need more than just writing. They need editing, too. From making sure “to” doesn’t become “too” or “two” or a wandering sentence doesn’t become a giant run-on paragraph, to making sure the main character’s name and hair and eye color stay the same throughout the story, there are a myriad of things to keep in check. These checks are all maintained through editing.

I love writing the story, imagining characters and places and all the rest. When it comes to the tedium of editing though, I’d much rather not. I’m a professional editor myself, and have edited non-fiction books, news articles, and more. These are all factual documents, where all I’m looking for is the difference between two and too and weather or not the name of the politician being interviewed is spelled correctly.

After months of work, and even a month of just letting it sit, I’m combing through one last time before I put my baby in the hands of someone who can truly make sure everything is as it should be. I am simultaneously jumping for joy and cowering in fear. Joyous that I have reached this step after so long, yet fearful of the potential judgment an editor will have of my work. No one has read this manuscript in its entirety since I finally decided to call it finished. It’s overwhelming to know that it will be seen, in full, by someone else’s eyes for the first time. Will they take one look at it and say ‘I can’t work with this, you’ll need to start from scratch’ or will they rave over it being the best thing they’ve read in the genre in years?

It’s a big step, but one I think I’m ready for.

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