Editing Sucks

"Writing is mostly rewriting"

Well, in my case... un-writing

At this moment, I'm sitting in my bedroom, at my makeshift writing table, listening to Pandora, specifically my Wicked channel, jamming to "A Whole New World". I'm not really feeling it at this moment, but I'm far too lazy to waste a skip on a song that I can now imagine sexually. But I'm digressing...

I'm having issues writing. Well, not really with writing, but with the editing process. I finished a long essay/short story entitled The Dead Girl. I loved it. I silently celebrated by myself that I actually had the discipline to finish it. I was walking around like a damn superhero afterwards, especially since it's in a format that I really don't like to write fiction in: first person, present tense.

It wasn't that long, in terms of the time span of the story. Maybe a 24 hours in protagonists (after)life, give or take. I've spent days trying to make this scene make sense. For me to edit a train of though narrative, I have quite a few steps that I go through. I'm going to list them, just so you know the stress that I've had on my noodle/eyeballs:

1. Now that I've completed the story (^-^), I send it via email, to my household Mac.
2. Now, the Mac can do something that my PC can't. I can look at both documents at once, and not have them undersized. This really comes in handy.
3. Once they're side by side, I bring up my camera, and record myself reading it aloud. There, I catch the first minor mistakes.
4. I'm retyping during step 3. Now that I've recorded, oh say, three minutes, I listen to it, and do more pruning and editing.
5. Repeat for all the pages

That took two days, taking in to account sleeping, eating, and general internet browsing moments. I thought I was a happy camper, proud of how it sounded. So proud was I, I was finally able to show someone else, a trusted critical friend.

Anyone who writes for the joy of it knows that you start catching more mistakes once you send it to someone else, then you feel like a dick for sending such a raw product. I was told that the voice of the narrator was a combination of me and William Shatner. Although that statement made me LOL, it also made me see how much I really needed to do in order to make it sound better. I went through it, pulled out more words and sentences, streamlining it more. After the first page, I sent the re-edited, revised version, and was told it was better.

I couldn't handle looking at The Dead Girl again for a few days, so I went away from her. I did some outlining for other stories, wrote a few sentences here and there for pieces that I hadn't looked at in a while. I spent a lot of time just being a lazy bum, I shan't lie. I even had some time hanging out with my cousin. Today however, I've decided to give this editing another crack.

Last time, I pulled 1000 words out of the story. I had been warned by author Simon van Booy that the majority of editing for me was going to be paring down. I didn't realize just how much this would blow until doing it with this piece.

It's really... intimidating. I get overwhelmed. It's like, damn, I spend at least 15 minutes per page, reading, re-reading, taking out sentences, words, rephrasing, the reading it again, trying to make it sound better, and I know that it's just the beginning. I haven't even gotten into the meat and taters of the story. I'm still setting up the plot.

It feels like it will never end.

Sometimes I don't know what to do with myself when I get into this mindset, and I get really depressed, and just want to run as far away as possible from my laptop. My career choice begins to feel like my enemy.

But... I've mad a resolve. Whilst looking for a job this summer, I'm going to spend as much time as possible writing, editing, putting together pieces that I will proudly share with the world as my own. When I get sick of looking at one piece, I will move on to another, and keep on keeping on. I knew that this would be a difficult choice, but I shall continue laboring in the vineyard, for I know my harvest will be the sweetest fruit.

Right now, I'm going to brew a nice pot of coffee, listen to more music, maybe switch to some classical music, see if it sparks any brain cells.