Edit Fest – Weeding

Most of today was spent either editing or gardening, and in a way, the two have quite a lot in common. In both cases you start with a seed – for writing, that’s an idea and for gardening it’s the source of a plant. Planting that seed…writing that first draft…that’s the fun part, but there are no guarantees it will grow and if it does, there are no promises that it will yield fruit.

You can take steps to make it more likely to succeed and weeding is one of them. I was weeding the garden today despite the fact that it is in its initial stages. I normally wouldn’t be doing that, anymore than I would with a first draft of a story, but we planted asparagus that takes three years of growth before it can be harvested and we’re on year two. Unlike our other crops that are just being planted, the asparagus sprouts have already started emerging, purply-green (not what’s in the picture – those are last year’s beets). The weeds were already springing up around this year’s growth, so some weeding had to be done.

Editing, a form of weeding, is just as tedious as the garden variety and you have to be as thorough as possible. It’s a matter of pulling out things that don’t belong and moving other things around for better positioning. If you do it properly, what remains will be healthier for it.

Those are my editing thoughts for the day and I’ve made great progress on “The Trading of Skin”. I hope to be done tomorrow. “Victims of Circumstance” will be next if those galleys I’m expecting soon haven’t made it back to me for final review.

Submission blitz update – I received a rejection for “Relief” today. It goes onto the shelf awaiting a new opportunity. In the meantime they have invited me to submit a second time before the May 31 deadline. If I can come up with a funny story idea before then, I may just take them up on that.