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I figure a lot of you are writers, well, from what I’ve read of the posts. I don’t know if its just me but I absolutely hate editing. Well, I guess I can honestly say I hate editing this one book I have. I started writing it four years ago. Being in and out of college, its hard to find time to just devote to it. But since I started writing it my vocabulary has grown, and my tastes have changed. So I finished the book, which ended up being 600 pages long and went through the entire thing tree times for editing. It still has a while to go before its where I want it.
But, I guess I rambled. This is my question. Do you ever find yourself going over the stuff that you’ve writen and have gotten so used to it that you feel it is to predictable? Even though I know it probably isn’t, I’m very paranoid about it. 😯
You betcha. But I don’t worry so much about predictablility as about technical accuracy. A few years ago I published a book. Now I’d love to go back and basically rewrite it. (The problem with that is that even if it weren’t already on the market, I don’t know how much I could change in it since the story is so tightly meshed.)
Personally, I rely on OpenOffice Writer to catch most of the typos, and when I’m uninspired I go back and read sections I’ve already written. I catch things there too. But the main load of editing gets loaded onto brothers, Mom and Grandma. I’d never catch all my mistakes if I did it myself. I think fast and my fingers barely keep up, and I keep finding skipped words and mixed-up sentences, but when I read them, I know what I’m saying and so my mind fills in the blanks and I don’t even notice my mistakes. It’s mandatory for me to have things looked at by 2nd, 3rd and 4th parties.OH thank goodness! I don’t know any other writers so this is a big relief. A lot of what you said in the second paragraph, I fall under the same catagory. Sorry if my spelling is off I haven’t slept in about 4 days. Its nice that you can count on your family to help you with your book. I know my mom would but she is always so busy I don’t really get to ask her, plus her eyes don’t do to well when she has to read for more than half an hour. As for getting my brother to read anything that isn’t in a medschool book I’m pretty much on my own. So I find myself with typos, missing words and things. Do you find yourself after a long period of writing mispelling really easy words but getting all the difficult ones right on the first try? I think after a while I just get a gigantic brain fart and I cramp up all together. I sometimes have to stop writing. Sorry, I’m talking your leg off 😳
Editing is my greatest hurdle, so great in fact that I’ve found I do far better when I’m editing as I go. This is a pain, since of course it’s most comfortable to just blast things out without really thinking about them, but for quality’s sake, constant revision is the only thing that works for me. Otherwise I just don’t finish anything. One reason for this is that my style has not settled yet… because it’s changing constantly I can’t let something alone for a while, say a couple of months, and still go back to it without wanting to just rewrite everything from scratch. There are several ambitious projects I want to go back to and finish, but they feel stagnant now and I don’t know how to go about re-immersing myself.
So, yes. Editing is a pain.
TheRedWriter wrote:OH thank goodness! I don’t know any other writers so this is a big relief. A lot of what you said in the second paragraph, I fall under the same catagory. Sorry if my spelling is off I haven’t slept in about 4 days. Its nice that you can count on your family to help you with your book. I know my mom would but she is always so busy I don’t really get to ask her, plus her eyes don’t do to well when she has to read for more than half an hour. As for getting my brother to read anything that isn’t in a medschool book I’m pretty much on my own. So I find myself with typos, missing words and things. Do you find yourself after a long period of writing mispelling really easy words but getting all the difficult ones right on the first try? I think after a while I just get a gigantic brain fart and I cramp up all together. I sometimes have to stop writing. Sorry, I’m talking your leg off 😳
It’s funny you should say that, because I’ve noticed it too! Especially when chatting on AIM or some such thing after writing all day… I’ll find myself trying to spell “city” with an S and failing miserably. Usually I use MS Word, which underlines misspellings, so it isn’t too bad while I’m actually working on something, but afterwards everything goes to all heck. 😆
Oh, and as for getting a second opinion, you should check out Writing.com. It’s an excellent site for feedback as long as you don’t mind putting your stuff up for all to see.
TheRedWriter wrote:OH thank goodness! I don’t know any other writers so this is a big relief. A lot of what you said in the second paragraph, I fall under the same catagory. Sorry if my spelling is off I haven’t slept in about 4 days. Its nice that you can count on your family to help you with your book. I know my mom would but she is always so busy I don’t really get to ask her, plus her eyes don’t do to well when she has to read for more than half an hour. As for getting my brother to read anything that isn’t in a medschool book I’m pretty much on my own. So I find myself with typos, missing words and things. Do you find yourself after a long period of writing mispelling really easy words but getting all the difficult ones right on the first try? I think after a while I just get a gigantic brain fart and I cramp up all together. I sometimes have to stop writing. Sorry, I’m talking your leg off 😳
Talk away. That’s what this forum is for. 😉
I have major spelling problems in IM, just because I’m trying to keep up with what the other guy is saying. But in real writing – and usually in forum writing – I go back and correct what I catch. It’s just that when I write my books and stories and I’m the middle of an idea that needs to get put down, I rush ahead of myself and make mistakes. If I’m at a section where I’m not real sure what I’m doing, I tend to make fewer mistakes.
As for family, I have enough brothers with enough varying tastes to swallow my writing, whether it be political or fantasy. Mom is busy too, of couse – she homeschools – but she takes time to edit for me. It takes a good long time, but it does get done, and thoroughly.
Are your writings anywhere online, Red?I’ve spent so much time over the last couple years at nitpicky editing that I practically enjoy it now. It’s the rewriting/changing things/adding things in that I just can’t stand. But then it’s somewhat similar to what GB said too–if I change something in book 1, I have to be very careful it doesn’t throw a monkey wrench into the plot of book 2 or 3. But then, I’m horribly anal about consistency.
And yes, some of the stuff I wrote years ago and have reread dozens of times does feel obvious, but I have the feedback from online friends to show me that it’s an issue of simply looking at it too often.
I’ve gotten very good at self-editing over the years, and found ways to help myself out. One is reading aloud (a good idea with helping dialogue anyway). Another is simply changing font and layout as sometimes I have things memorized by where they fall on the page. Anything that helps me see it from a different angle, or ‘tricks’ my brain into spotting things it might have missed. 🙄
Good luck with that book! The oldest of mine I finished in 2001 when I had so much less experience than I do now is the one that really gives me the most misery with editing and tweaking. 😛
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Adaneth!! Changing font and layout is a brilliant idea!!! Oh my gosh, you have no idea how much that is going to help me. Sorry about the excitement, but really, man, that is an excellent idea. I never even thought of that. Memorizing things is exactly what I have trouble with a lot of the time, and it makes me miss stuff just like you said. Haha, and it’s such an obvious thing, too. So simple. Waah.
Wow.
Thanks.
Now I have to go try it. 😀
Chessapeaka, its annoying isn’t it. On IM I often find myself even spelling things backwards. Not just small words, big ones too. Spelled perfectly backwards, I guess when I write for long amouts of time I have bouts of dislexia 😕
I edit as I go now, which does make things much easier even though it is fun to just plow through. But the books I wrote back in high school I just wrote everything without editing. I can barely look at them with out cringing 😳 I haven’t posted anything I’ve writen online because I’m very protective about my work. What was the book you published GB? I might have read it.
Probably not, unless you read political fiction. 😆
LINK
It’s long, I know. If I could redo it I’d try to shorten it. But as I said, the story is so tightly meshed I’m not sure I’d managed. Besides, three years of complete world history in 1300 pages – not bad 😆
I can say that the reports of people who actually took the time to read it were unanimously favorable.I need to echo Chessie – that font-changing is a great idea. Thanks for the tip!
Well yeah, no I haven’t read it. But goodness, gracious 1300 pages. I could barely stand going over 600 hundred. Now that is devotion.
It took about 10 years, I think, but the first 5 were crap. I chucked at least 500 full pages over the course of its creation, aside from editing.
The sequel will be out soon, and the third and last book of the series is a rough first draft. It kind of got shoved to a back burner after Eragon prodded me to do something better than its sorry, clichéed self.
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