Editing Extravaganza

I love telling stories. I love writing. Learning to write in a way that tells the best story possible has been the most enjoyable part of this whole publishing process. I'm a terrible editor... the absolute worst if I'm being honest. I see things as a whole and tend to skip over small details without batting an eye. It's the same reason I can step over a pile of laundry five times before noticing that there is a pile of laundry on the floor. Part of this crazy publishing journey I'm on has been about learning to stop and see the small details and fix them to help my story shine.

Fiery Seas paired me with an editor who has been an absolute joy to work with. She checked over my manuscript looking for any plot holes, grammar errors, or other writing issues and sent those changes to me for approval or rewriting. Seeing her marks in track changes has been such a gift for helping me identify problems with my writing and finding ways to improve it. There are several writing habits I have that I now know to look out for as I move on to write the third book in my series. Having an editor to work with has already improved my writing immensely.

I have habits such as periodically slipping into a passive voice, overuse of the word "as", and using too many names in dialogue tags. These are things I never would have noticed without the sharp eye of Vicki, my editor. Now that I've seen these errors I can't unsee them... which is a good thing as I start working on my third novel. Each time I start to type one I stop, hit the delete key, and eliminate the problem. It's my hope that with every novel I send her there will be less of these rookie mistakes since I can now catch them as I write.

When writing the first draft of a novel, it's important not to stop and get hung up on the little things... the things that can be fixed when working on the second draft. Getting the ideas, the plot, out onto the page is the most important part of that process. Pretty comes later. However, now with these issues in my mind, I'm finding it more natural to not make those mistakes in the first place. Like learning any new habit, the more I write the easier and more natural it is becoming for me to reach for the right word or sentence, rather than the incorrect one that needs to be changed later. My writing reflexes are already much improved.

This next month will be spent finalizing the edits on my first novel, starting on the edits for my second novel, and writing the third novel in my series. Lucky for me it's -20 degrees where I live so I have all the time in the world to stay tucked in my warm home with my animals curled around me as I edit and write.