I haven't blogged that much this week because I've been going cray cray with a certain red pen. I've started unmercifully editing my book and let's just say this type of editing takes much, much longer than writing. Which is surprising since conventional wisdom says writing down made-up ideas is the harder of the two but conventional wisdom, like most things, is wrong.
I'm happy to report that I've put my book away long enough to now see gaping plot holes, problems with character development, and straight up bad writing in more than a few areas. (I think reading Updike's four Rabbit novels last year gave me an education in the art of consistently good writing and how much more practice is needed to get even close to his level, if that's even possible. The dude is a master.)
Anyhoo here's what they looked like before, all pristine and happy to be sparkling words on a clean white page:
And here is the aftermath:
So far a couple pages have huge red X's through entire blocks of texts, and some pages need to be rewritten entirely, but it's coming along swimmingly and is -- dare I say -- actually fun? It's empowering to be able to truly criticize your own work, call it shit, and change it until it looks like a shade of its former self but is made into something much better.
On another note I have been listening to this song nonstop today and I suggest you do as well. After the first couple listens I was hooked. Apparently over 5 million other people were too:
I can't imagine how difficult it would be to write a novel, let alone editing one. But I can see how it would be very fulfilling to embrace the process!
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