First Find Your Machete.

 Editing is a process. A progression. You can't do it all at once. At least I can’t. I can’t be faffing around with missing speech marks and typos while I'm trying to make sense of character A’s muddled motivations. Or excise those repetitions. So you do it in stages. Clear, progressive stages. Otherwise it can all get too much and we do it half-heartedly. (You've only got to read a lot of self-published novels to see the end result.)

Let's face it. However much we all love writing (or rather being writers) the actual editing can stink. I'm now on the last mile of that editing journey and I'm drained. At the moment, I'm doing the fine tuning before I get out my microscope and scalpel. I have a headache. My eyes are blurred. My jaw is tense and I'm grinding my teeth. I need a stiff (very stiff) drink and it's only four o'clock.

This is bad. But it has to be faced. There's no point writing what you consider is a wonderful story with characters everyone will fall in love with if you can’t be bothered to make it as perfect as it can be.

Of course, I can hear you all saying. Eggs. Grandmother. Suck. But you'd be surprised how many novice writers think they know how to edit—and also make a song and dance of it  as well and so think they must be on the right track. They fiddle and they tinker but never get down and dirty. That's not to say that fiddling and tinkering don't have their place. But they come at the very, very end of the process.

So, here is how I see editing. It’s using a progression of tools, each getting smaller and more precise. Don’t follow my method slavishly because there are many perfectly valid ways to do any job. This is what works for me after many years of getting it wrong.

But what IS essential is that you take your time. What's the rush? I am well aware I should have started writing for publication much, much earlier in my life than I did. But that's irrelevant here. The point is, I am where I am. I can't turn the clock back or envy those young things now riding the top of the best-seller charts. It's not their fault. (Besides, envy has wrecked many a life.) So why should I hurry? What difference will it make for me in the grand scheme of things? And if you're in the lucky position to be in your twenties, thirties, forties or even fifties, time's winged chariot has barely left the station.

So what's the very first you do when you've finally got that first draft down? Well, you put it away for as long as you can and forget about it. In an ideal world, you’d wait at least six months. But we don't. So I would suggest an absolute minimum of two weeks, preferably spent well away from your desk—maybe even the other side of the world.

Then, go into the shed, garage or ferret under you bed and find your trusty machete. No, not a needle or a scalpel. Not even a sharp knife. Not yet. A machete. Good. Let us begin. 

Sorry. You'll have to wait for my next post. I have a novel to finish, you know.