I must say that I did not reach my goal of finishing the editing of my novel this summer. Although I am disappointed in myself, I realized that I have a serious procrastination problem that needs to be dealt with. I have two excuses for my failure:
1: I had to work hard during the summer because I have no income during the school year, so a lot of my focus was on earning some moo-lah.
2: Frankly, I had a seriously hard time even getting started on the editing process!
The task seemed too huge and my brain kind of shut down. I didn't know where to begin or what needed to be done. It was like I was trying to climb these stairs and every step got a little bit bigger. I had a hard time moving forward because the step was too high. Hopefully that little metaphor made sense...
It seems like a task way too big for me to handle and even now I have no idea what to do... Any editing tips my faithful readers can provide would be much appreciated!
Kat, first of all you need to be forgiving of yourself. Sometimes things don't work out the way you wanted them to when you want them to.
ReplyDeleteNow, here are some tips on what to do. Make a list of all the things you need to work on in the revision process. Include plot changes, character changes, cutting words, sections that need enlarging, descriptions that need work, POV, etc. (Don't worry about the editing right now. You can deal with spelling, grammar and style later.) Just focus on revision. Once you've made your list, do each of the things on the list one at a time. Don't let yourself get sidetracked by other issues. Once you've finished that one thing, cross it off your list and move on to the next. Keep going until you've done everything on the list. You'll be surprised how quickly you finish revising.
Then do the editing in the same way. List all the things you need to focus on and do them one by one.
Jai