Today’s task is simple.  Edit.  Actually, ‘simple’ really only describes the act of discussing today’s task.  The editing itself is anything but.

I’ve finished the first draft of my novel and now I’m in the editing phase.  It’s a fairly enlightening job, editing.  I did a lot of the work on ‘Falling Tears’ at night, after the children went to bed, because the house is so much quieter.  Apparently, my brain is a lot quieter too.

I’ve been at this editing thing for a few days now and I’m through my initial read up to chapter eight of twenty seven (plus an introduction and epilogue).  Reading back over some of the things I wrote weeks ago is an exercise in humility.  So far I thought a lot of things like the following:

‘Did I actually write that?’

‘Was I asleep?’

‘That sentence doesn’t even make sense!’

‘Ugh.’

‘Seriously?’

‘What the hell is that suppose to mean?’

Veronica Roth, on advising writers how to write, says that one should ‘word vomit’ and fix later.  I apparently have taken that to heart.

On the other hand, it’s nice to go back over the work and begin to make changes that make the writing better, make the language more fluent and ultimately tell the story in the best way.  So far this only involves heavy use of a red Sharpe.  It will be good to transfer those red marks into digital sentences and read the result.  Until then I’ll keep at it with the red pen.  Simple.