How Come Editing is So Hard?

After finishing the first draft of my novel and diving right into the stage of editing, I discovered something.

Editing is hard.

It takes time and work.

And it's not the most inspiring thing either.

I love writing. But editing is not writing.

It's not the fun and exhilaration of creating a new world. Of finding gems of truth and weaving them into the story. Of pouring your heart into the life of these imaginary beings of your creation and making them more than imaginary.

Editing is looking at that world, that character, that messy jumble of words that you worked so hard to make, and crying.

And then editing is keeping going anyway. It's sitting there - even though it's hard, and it hurts - but sitting there and reading through that phrasing, that scene, that entire chapter and then rewriting. Deleting those words you worked so hard to make.

Editing is hard because it's tearing apart that thing you took so much pride in, spent so much time creating. Poured yourself into.

It's deleting. Redoing. Trying to stay positive even though those words are just so awful. Eating lots of pizza to keep going. Slogging through a sea of words and keyboard slams and trying to find some sense somewhere.

It's hard.

But it's totally worth it.

If it weren't hard, there wouldn't be that happy satisfaction of having completed something great. Something important. Something challenging.

There wouldn't be anywhere near as much Adventure to it.

I couldn't use epic phrasing like: *draws sword and charges off to tame the word-dragons*

And I couldn't be writing a post about editing while I was meant to be editing...cough cough.


Editing is hard, but it's also necessary. If I never bothered to edit through a novel it would remain the same mess as when it started. Basically, I'd never get anywhere.

Unfortunately, it must be done. But there are perks.

The perks of knowing it's getting better, of all the pizza (virtual and real) good friends give you because they understand (or at least are trying to), the cool blog posts you can come up with while procrastinating, the word-doc formatting that can be fiddled with (aka: more procrastinating), and so much fun stuff.

And having people asking to beta read it is always encouraging. Apparently, even after reading those unedited snippets, they think that it's still worth it. They still want to devour it.

Or there's the doubtful people who simply ask when they can rip it to pieces with a red pen.

I can't say how much it excited me when one of my friends asked to beta read...and my cousin...and several other friends...and my family just ask when they can, not if they can. Because they all know I was going to let them even if they hadn't wanted to.

Editing is hard, but because of it, I have already found so much encouragement in my writing.

Plus, this blog post got kinda side-tracked. But it was about editing in general anyway.

Are you in the editing stage too? (do tell about allll the writing stuff)

|| Jane Maree ||