I know it’s blasphemy to some, but I edit as I go along. In The Edge of the Sphere, I edited at the end of every “part” (there were four main parts, a brief interlude, plus a short “Part Five” with a shorter epilogue). The current project isn’t broken down that way, so I’ve decided to edit every 10,000 words or so.
I was going to write another blog post about my editing experience. However, it has become clear to me that while I think I’m learning things as I keep plugging away at writing, I’m probably just fooling myself. I decided rather than rambling on about the same nonsense for another couple hundred words, I’ll just provide an illustration to speak for me in regards to what I’ve been doing today and yesterday:
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| Fear my mad MS Paint skillz. |
I know “that” is unnecessary, like, 95% of the time. I’ve been trying to avoid it. I KNOW IT IS WRONG. And yet, “that” keeps sneaking in there. Between “that” and the adverbs I’ve also been slicing mercilessly, I’m surprised my word count is still above 10K.
From now on, whenever someone says “I hate that” in reference to just about anything in the world, I will agree. And I will not be lying. I really do hate THAT.