Editing Take 2

Dear humans,

You finally finished tirelessly reading, plotting, tearing apart your novel, and imagined how to make it better. Congratulations! Now comes the really annoying part, updating your computer files. Going through every single page, going through every paragraph and sentence making sure you put that added comma in the exact right place. Erasing, replacing, adding, and just removing doing this over and over; Until you want to scream. Eventually you run into a sentence you had highlighted months ago because you didn't know what to do with it. And here you are months later and you still have no clue!

Over and over page after page you fix and correct. And eventually YOUR DONE! Woo Hoo! Then you look at your check list and it says 'are you happy with it?' I'm of course thinking I barely remember what it's about my brain is mush and I do not have the strength of will to re-read the thing again. 'Uh can I just print it out and give it to my trusted friend now?' I ask myself. 'Well it's the middle of the night I want to sleep. And she won't be able to work on it for another week. Nah I'll be going to sleep then. Until tomorrow maybe I'll have the energy to figure it out.'

When do you feel that your book is ready? When are you happy with it and you're ready to share it with those you trust and the world? My guess at the moment when you're too tired to care!

So you've taken a couple for days the whole novel to sink in and some thoughts, questions, concerns, and to be honest annoyances start to sink in. 'Ugh I really wish so-so didn't do that. Why is she so emotional? I created her to be bad-ass and awesome not to start crying every twenty pages.' So now it's time to fix those eventually. Write down those ideas and hold on to it. Time to reread with a clear mind set. Read it as if it was for pleasure reading. No looking for better options just read it for love. Observe and record your idea's (and the page number it belongs to), then ignore them and keep reading!

When your done go back over those thoughts do they still apply? Yes, then fix it. No, then ignore and move on. Finish updating then it's time to fix the hard drive. Congrats on getting through another step!

Thanks for reading RawLitCom, True Confessions of an Aspiring Author!