One Must Never Rest on their Laurels

I am editing my way through Bindings & Spines, the next White Dragon Black novel. These are the final edits before I send the manuscript to my publisher…so we can start on the edits. Being a writer is a fun and silly game.

There are a few words that should always try to be minimized in one’s writing. While I was doing the edits for Tomorrow Wendell, my editor sent me a list of the ones that seemed to be a stumbling block for me, so that I could do a hunt for them and try to eliminate the majority from the text. Freeing her from having to worry over them in the future. The word I use far too much in my writing is ‘was’ – so while I am going through each chapter, I am tasking myself to remove them. This isn’t easy but it needs to be done, so I might as well do it now.

It can be too easy to just leave your writing at a certain state, and let the editors catch the mistakes. A writer ca deal with only what is pointed out, when it is pointed out – but not only is that unfair to the editor, it is unfair to to the writer.

I need to train myself to work at a higher level – constantly shifting up my game. By removing some of the stumbling blocks, before I sent it to my publisher, that frees up my editor to make me focus of finer details. It allows my editor to not have to exhaust herself on catching individual words which frees her up to look at larger concerns and help me gain a deeper writing ability.

Editors are not grade school teacher marking an exam, they really shouldn’t have to worry over the small stuff. They are guides to a higher level of writing. They are craftsman teaching refinement and how to bring out the best shine in the gem of your writing. How can they do this if they are spending all their time knocking the rough corners off your precious stone?

Every story, every ‘dialogue’ with your editor should be a learning experience. It doesn’t have to be a revelation or epiphany, nor more than it has to be a full semester of advanced English Lit. – but you should come away from it with at least one nugget of understanding that can be applied to the next story. It is these tiny pieces, slowly gathered over time, that build a great writer who can produce beautiful gems spun of words.

Filed under: Publishing, Writing Tagged: Bindings & Spines, current work in progress, editor, edits, novel, paranormal, paranormal private investigator, plot, publish, Tomorrow Wendell, Urban Fantasy, White Dragon Black Series, world building, writer, writing