Who’s Afraid of Editing?

Pretty much the only thing happening on the writing front right now is revisions to The Mountain of the Wolf—and there’s only so much you can say about your progress on one particular project. But as I was thinking yesterday, I think you learn a little something from the process of writing each new story, no matter how long or short. For instance…

not so scary any more

After five years as a published author, I’m beginning to entertain the hope that I may be growing out of my fear of feedback. Oh, sure, I still get nervous when I know someone is reading a new story; but it’s no longer the abject, craven terror that it used to be. I guess I’ve been fortunate: I’ve had several good experiences with really good, helpful feedback that helped me improve a story. And I’ve discovered that with some projects, you really do come to a point where you just can’t decide objectively for yourself whether it’s good, bad or in-between, and need someone else’s perspective to help you move forward. End result: last month I was astounded to find myself actually looking forward to my beta-readers’ comments on The Mountain of the Wolf. That’s progress.

take a deep breath

There is always a moment (okay, it’s more like a few hours, or a few days) after you first read through your feedback when you feel totally overwhelmed by just how much work the story needs. Even if you know exactly what edits you want to make, it looks like a massive job. I think the thing to do is just breathe for a while, before you even think of touching a red pen. I got most of my feedback for The Mountain of the Wolf just before heading out on a camping trip, and initially I thought the hours on the road and by the lake would be a good time to think it over and try to rework my outline. So I brought my notebooks along. But once there, I didn’t want to touch them. I realized what I needed to do was just put the whole thing out of my head for a couple of days, relax and enjoy the peace and quiet, and come back to the edits later with a calmer perspective. And you know what? On the second night, some of the ideas that I needed simply popped into my head, and I pulled out my notebook and sat by the campfire and scribbled them down. After that, nothing seemed as overwhelming anymore.

a little goes a long way

Somewhat along the same lines, it’s amazing how much you can change the purport of a scene or even a whole story by just altering a few lines—or even a word. Changes that I initially thought would require whole paragraphs of new text have ended up being much easier than I expected. Overall, this editing process has ended up being encouraging to me in a variety of ways, and I’m actually glad it was necessary.