Day 431: Editing Jeffries

Man editing is hard. This is the second long form story I've had to edit and it is just brutal. Getting all my ducks in a row only to realize that a small change I made 10,000 words later means I need to go back and add something else is so annoying. What's worse is when the story just doesn't read the way I want it to and I know I'll have to go and rewrite large sections. It's so strange how I'll think something came out well enough while writing just to find out later that it wasn't nearly as polished as I imagined it was. Makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills or something.

On the plus side, I am getting a lot of help this time. There's so much I missed that my beta reader has pointed out to me that it makes me wonder how anybody has ever written anything all by themselves. Looking back, I'm amazed I was able to get something published without someone looking over my shoulder. I guess hindsight is 20/20 but this is something else. I think I'll end up doing this for pretty much every story I write going forward because there's just so much benefit even though the reader isn't even half way through the story. It's eye opening to say the least.

I really want this story to turn out well. I can almost see it getting there. There are a few really rough patches that I need to rework, but other than that I think it will turn out pretty well when all is said and done. Fingers crossed anyway.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley