It’s been a long time since I actively looked at my own work and tore it to pieces. I don’t usually put that much time and effort in my short stories and that might be why I’m not getting them out there (go figure). I hardly ever edited my college papers (again, that might be the reason for the not bad grades, but not spectacular ones either).
In fact, there is probably only one other work that I’ve ever marked up. I have a short romance that has marks all over it. I haven’t rewritten it yet, but I lost interest in the story to do that.
However, currently I’ve been editing my first book. You know the one. It’s the young adult book I’ve been working on since 2012 or 2013. I’ve been boasting about how many drafts I’ve gotten done with and so on. The thing is, I haven’t once red marked the hell out of it. This time though, I am doing just that.
And guess what? I LOVE IT!
Yes, I’m a lover for editing. There’s something about the juxtaposition of red and black on white paper. There’s something about finding errors and changing up sentences. I am in love with editing!
I’m not even halfway done, but that’s because I’m finding places I can beef up or even tear apart. I’ve even jotted down this draft’s word count before the editing. The current word count is 33226. My goal is to not only make the book better, but also beef up the word count to 45-50k words. I can’t wait to see what the finished product will be and I love that the editing is getting me even more motivated than the act of writing.
It makes me think that maybe I should look into editing once Bug starts school (Sept. 2016, hopefully!). I don’t think I would like being alone for a long time and since preschool is a full day affair where I live, it makes sense to get a part time job. Editing seems like a great way to exercise my own editing and writing skills while helping others in their work. Editing shouldn’t be seen as failure, it should be seen as growth.
I love the red marks in my work and the red marks of life. Growth is fun. It’s exciting. You can definitely tell I’m excited, huh?
I hope this feeling never ends. 🙂
Casia's Corner 