Have I mentioned that I hate revision and editing?
I love writing. I love figuring out how a story plays out and putting it on paper. It's one of the best feelings in the world to develop characters that people can connect to and want to know more about. All the little bits and pieces that make up their world and their lives make me extremely happy, and getting to type The End is a moment of glory eclipsed only by the day I married my husband and the days I had my children.
Unfortunately this is where the suck begins. The revision and editing process. Oh how I loathe this part.
This is me when I realize I have to start fixing my story to make it readable. And I have to do this. Because let's be honest, all writers have bad habits. And I have some truly horrible habits. For instance, the word Began. I cannot begin to tell you how many times my character began to do something. I don't even know why I like this word. It's like a trumped up version of my norcal upbringing where everything was "and he was like, and I was like, and we were like." It bugs. it's horrible to listen to and worse to read so first things first, search and destroy all instances (or most) of the word began. And as I begin to fix this I start noticing all the other little flaws in my manuscript and I start feeling exhausted and angry. 
This is usually the point where my children and my animals and my spouse start begging for food and attention or my team starts losing the freaking conference championship and people really should be more wary about approaching me because this is what they're going to get. 
eff you seahawks. But eventually I fall back in my story and start finding mistakes and fixing them, and the story starts to flow better. I'm starting to be more proud of myself and my story and then comes the DILEMMA. THE SCENE. It's a perfectly crafted scene. Beautiful, poignant, hilarious and it makes me fall in love with my characters even more but there's a problem.
it doesn't fit. It doesn't progress the story and it messes with the flow so...it has to go, even though it doesn't want to and I don't want it to.
no...but I shouldn't have asked you to go with me in the first place. I'll try to use you later, I promise! I know in the end I'll have crafted a better story. It's not just chipping away at the block of marble to reveal the masterpiece, it's more like mining that block of marble and smoothing it down before you even started, then regretting every chip and chink you have to make to find the masterpiece. You want to pick up all those little pieces of rubble from the ground and clutch them to your breast and apologize that they aren't good enough.
There are writers who love the revision process and like it better than writing the actual story. I don't agree with them. Frankly I think they're nuts and find myself inexplicably distrustful of them. I mean come on, who likes editing? that's like...like liking to clean, something else I only do because I must but find little to no enjoyment in it.
But I can say that despite my grumbling and moaning, the version I have after my edits are done is so much more polished, that even if you never get to see the scene's I had to cut, it's worth it because I know all the work I do now will just allow you to see the sparkling gem underneath, and not just the rough stone it used to be. Even if it does make me full of feels I don't know how to deal with.
Thank god there are gif's to express that at least.
Unfortunately this is where the suck begins. The revision and editing process. Oh how I loathe this part.
This is me when I realize I have to start fixing my story to make it readable. And I have to do this. Because let's be honest, all writers have bad habits. And I have some truly horrible habits. For instance, the word Began. I cannot begin to tell you how many times my character began to do something. I don't even know why I like this word. It's like a trumped up version of my norcal upbringing where everything was "and he was like, and I was like, and we were like." It bugs. it's horrible to listen to and worse to read so first things first, search and destroy all instances (or most) of the word began. And as I begin to fix this I start noticing all the other little flaws in my manuscript and I start feeling exhausted and angry. This is usually the point where my children and my animals and my spouse start begging for food and attention or my team starts losing the freaking conference championship and people really should be more wary about approaching me because this is what they're going to get. eff you seahawks. But eventually I fall back in my story and start finding mistakes and fixing them, and the story starts to flow better. I'm starting to be more proud of myself and my story and then comes the DILEMMA. THE SCENE. It's a perfectly crafted scene. Beautiful, poignant, hilarious and it makes me fall in love with my characters even more but there's a problem. it doesn't fit. It doesn't progress the story and it messes with the flow so...it has to go, even though it doesn't want to and I don't want it to.
no...but I shouldn't have asked you to go with me in the first place. I'll try to use you later, I promise! I know in the end I'll have crafted a better story. It's not just chipping away at the block of marble to reveal the masterpiece, it's more like mining that block of marble and smoothing it down before you even started, then regretting every chip and chink you have to make to find the masterpiece. You want to pick up all those little pieces of rubble from the ground and clutch them to your breast and apologize that they aren't good enough. There are writers who love the revision process and like it better than writing the actual story. I don't agree with them. Frankly I think they're nuts and find myself inexplicably distrustful of them. I mean come on, who likes editing? that's like...like liking to clean, something else I only do because I must but find little to no enjoyment in it.
But I can say that despite my grumbling and moaning, the version I have after my edits are done is so much more polished, that even if you never get to see the scene's I had to cut, it's worth it because I know all the work I do now will just allow you to see the sparkling gem underneath, and not just the rough stone it used to be. Even if it does make me full of feels I don't know how to deal with.
Thank god there are gif's to express that at least.
No comments have been added yet.
