Day 266: More on Editing

So editing is going ... shall we say, poorly? It's a disaster. I'm completely stuck on the first part of my novel. I've said before that a writing a long story is like kicking a snowball down a hill. It's easier to correct mistakes early on when the ball is small and slow than to try to reroute a massive snowball. Once it starts hurtling toward something small and vulnerable, a family of orphaned baby seals perhaps, then it's already too late. Well the baby seals are going to eat it in this story. The baby seals are me, and the quality of the novel is about as good as this stupid analogy. I can't find a good solution to this. I think maybe I should just rewrite the whole of part one? It just reads so poorly. The characters are all annoying, a cardinal sin in any story, and the plot is plodding and weird and too fast at the same time somehow. I'm not really sure how to improve. Unfortunately I think I need some advice from someone who actually knows what they're doing. The only real way to do that is to show someone the novel and unfortunately that means I need to edit it first. Kind of a catch 22 here. I guess I'll just keep muddling along and hope I figure something out.

I've been editing for weeks already and I've gotten nowhere though. I'm just going to have to read through the whole thing first while reserving any edits for later, which is much easier said than done. Maybe that will give me some clearer insights. I should have worked this out during that phase where I assembled an editing strategy, but nobody else seems to have done this. It was more like an editing pass immediately that was also a read through. I will end up deviating from the model I laid out after all.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley