Writing versus editing

The other day I remarked on Facebook on the progress I'd made with edits on my first manuscript. I wrote this manuscript in high school and rewrote it seven or eight times in my twenties. I had to, I had no life experience and every time I learned something I saw a new nuance of how life worked that I had to share with my characters. Some people often lament not having caught their writing bug early in life, that they wasted too much time on other things. I remind them that it's hard to be a writer when your so naive regarding the human condition.

Plenty of friends have remarked that I have spent too much time on this project, but I enjoy it, and thus far it has yielded a series of three manuscripts. Now if it makes me happy to work on that series, even when I could do something else... Well, it's my compulsion, my hobby and I do have other ideas and projects kicking around.

They just never have the same pull. These folks are my first born, and as with real-life parenting, I have a learning curve. I have made mistakes, and I can either ignore them and move forward or try to rectify them. Plenty of people move on. Me, I want to fix them. It would hurt too much to know I had it in my power to change something and I didn't.

That said... Another author friend mentioned to me that she loves editing. That got me thinking. I love editing too or I wouldn't do it year in and year out. Do I love it more than writing?

Ooooooo....

Writing is emotional, messy, surprising and frustrating. Even if you plot, you learn things as you go. You cry. You laugh. You shake. You hit walls and climb them. You know what's going to happen and you don't. You know these people and then you find out that you don't.

Editing allows you to take all that mixed up stuff from the writing process and sort it, refine it and polish it. You get this high that says, "Yeah! This will work." And it's different from that writing high, because the writing high is very similar to a mother with a newborn baby-- all mothers think their babies are beautiful, whether they have conehead, cradle cap or look like a froggy old man. You need to step back and let that baby grow into its skin.

I love them both. I feel more control in the editing process, but I love the emotional roller coaster of dumping words on the page for the first time.

Editing, editing, editing

Perhaps this is a message of hope. Perhaps it's a warning that if you're considering the writing life, then have your heart and mind prepared for the frustrations and thrills of trying to tame the written word.

I revealed my first two chapters to a friend, fellow writer and former critique group member (she's moved out of the area, we did not throw her out). I needed someone to read them, not for a line by line critique but just a general "does it work" idea and to reassure myself that I hadn't edited the manuscript into a mess that no longer made sense.

These are legitimate questions/fears.

She liked them. She had read a recent version of the manuscript a couple years ago and thought the antagonist's motives more clear and his character more believable.

These are the same changes-- to the mythical structure of my supernatural universe-- that I labored over a month ago trying to decide whether these changes would be for THIS series or a book in the future.

A writer has to listen to his/her heart, because those lingering doubts of "what if" would haunt him/her every time a rejection comes in. Maybe I waste too much time writing and editing, but if I as a person am always changing, my manuscripts must change too.

One of the first things you learn in journalism is to save everything you write and to go through it once a year and throw it all in the trash except for maybe your five favorite pieces. You grow so quickly under the routine of professional writing that those early pieces look like garbage. In hindsight, they are embarrassing.

Fiction has similar growth. Whether it be the bad poems an author wrote in high school or a first manuscript, eventually we look back and see the faults. But since I'm not published yet, I can improve these early words and make them something I'm still proud of. I'm okay with that.

September around the corner

Note the generic headline. That means I have nothing on my mind and no idea what the heck I'm doing or writing about. Scary, eh? Blogging for blogging's sake.

School started for me and my daughter yesterday, which means I can expect my free time to either disappear thanks to economics homework or reappear since child heads to school each day. It's too soon to tell.

I have been tweeting more than usual these days, as some old friends have made some new use of the tool and somehow sucked me into it also. That's okay. I guess.

Between my iron deficiency, my child, my work schedule and my volunteer schedule, my writing time has been slim. But I've steadily been reworking the mythology of the novel I've been shopping to agents, Manipulations, book one of my Fashion and Fiends series. The more I work on it, the more I wonder if the friend who suggested to me marketing them out of order might be right.

Books two (Courting Apparitions) and three (Absolution) are definitely more exciting than book one, and since book three transitions one of the protagonists into the antagonist, I can't help but wonder if I should market book three first and leave books one and two for the story of how this all came to be...

Kind of like Star Wars.

That's lots of run-ons and fragments but... got my thoughts down.

Still editing

I have finished the editing for the first six chapters of the new mythic concept for Manipulations. The chapters are still going at a pace of about an hour a piece and I enjoy them. I've removed a lot of text, having deleted about 20 pages so far. That wasn't my intent, but it will be interesting to see what happens at the end. I will have room to add scenes if I need to. That could work well.

It's got me thinking about the difference between easy edits and laborious ones. I really believe that the easier the edits, the closer to "right" the story is.

Simplicity

I have a few free minutes and an internet signal so I thought I'd make a quick post.

I have edited the first two chapters of my first book, the one I usually shop around. A few weeks ago I thought I had a brilliant concept (and I still think it's clever and sharp) that would improve my villain. Galen has always had weak motivations. What I had in mind altered the entire universe, gave the universe a new mythology and the supernatural rules for my villain would change.

This meant massive rewrites of ever chapter in his POV.

I was willing to do that, but every time I tried I couldn't get the right zing. It required a new first chapter and nothing worked. Nothing had enough suspense and tension. And then I reversed the idea. I had the same idea, making one character a totally different creature, but not Galen.

Galen remains a witch.

His mate becomes something different. Something he is very jealous of.

And that jealous is a pivotal part of his motivation.

Minor edits to the first couple chapters have taken an hour each. This thrills me. It feels like I'm on the right track. I like this because every time I read the original text, I couldn't help but think, "I like this. I don't want to delete this."

My new revisions preserve the original story and its settings.

Writing again?

I have been writing again. I have an old romance novel/ghost story in my head that I lovingly refer to as the prequel, as its the love story of my main characters in my Fashion and Fiends series. I wrote half of it, once upon a time, but hit 50,000 words and when things got good, I couldn't keep going.

For years, I had this dead spot.

And then I asked myself two questions: What if we saw her perspective? (The story is told from two view points: the young man falling in love and his dead father.) What if her mom knew about the relationship? (As it stands, they hide their relationship.)

That got me thinking even more: What if her mom encouraged their relationship? Maybe did some matchmaking?

I started this story years ago, before my daughter was born. She just turned seven. And yet, it never occurred to me to include the female love interests thoughts and conflicts in the story.

So I guess my point is, every once in a while you have to look at your manuscript intentionally asking the obvious questions and toying with the answers.

More on first lines

In my mind, I've been reworking some chapters in my first volume of my Fashion and Fiends series. Except the more I contemplate, the more I think I'm treading into rewrite territory instead of edit... Is this Galen's story (the villain from Manipulations and Courting Apparitions, the first two volumes in the series) or is it someone else's story?

The ideas I've found make Galen a better character, and I think he needs them unless I'm willing to relegate him to a less-than-my-best status and I don't think I am ready for that.

I opened my file and planned to read the text noting what edits would be necessary if I implemented my ideas. It became overwhelming quickly. So I started drafting potential new first chapters. And today, after six weeks of summer class and no real word gain on any of my personal projects, I wrote this line as my proposed new opening:

The sanctuary trembled on shockwaves of heat, rattling the century-old stained glass, as Galen flung his wooden staff toward his lover. 

Of course, I already want to change "lover" to "sister" and show them doing something naughty in the next sentence.

I suppose the moral of this blog remains to be seen, but I have to reiterate that you have to follow your instincts when you think something is wrong with the text.