I had a bad case of I thought I had written and posted a post only to discover that there wasn’t any post written by me. Or anyone else for that matter. What an empty feeling—I’m trying to remedy that by rambling a little bit this Friday morning. I’m gonna fill that void. I put the finishing touches on the Eden manuscript this past week. I had the joy of working through some insightful and fantastic suggestions from my first (and first-time) reader (thank you Lindsay!). The feedback I received enabled me to breathe a lot more life into the characters of Eden and story itself . I’d hazard to say that Eden is ready for the microphone.

Editing—the process can be a bitch. There’s no kissing on the first date. It can seem endless. Thank god you like the movie—or at least, you did the first two passes. But, seriously, editing is a privilege and with some (a mother load) patience, it can be rewarding as hell. I find an easy parallel to editing process and in music recording setting. I start with a coupe raw tracks (acoustic guitar and vocals, for example)—the essence of the arrangement that’s been rattling around your head. I begin to add parts. Maybe, in the process of adding parts, I hear things I hadn’t heard the first go around. The song grows before my eyes and hears. I’m into this. Now, let’s say I’ve got a track that is about 85% finished—teasing out the extra 15% to really make things shine—to get it right, or as close to being right as you can—is a real feel good sort of thing. I usually will step away at that point and come back with some fresh ears.

How many times do I go over a manuscript? I’ll put it this way—I’ll rewrite as many times as I feel are needed, *not* exceeding three times prior to delivery to a first reader. At some point, you’ve got to step away and let it go. First-reader delivery is a great time do to that. Hand that sucker off and write some short stories, play with a little riff-writing, up your time spent reading. When that draft comes back, it’s your final go at making things really shine. Surely, everyone does things differently—but, I think the contanst can be read as a little patience goes a long way to making each revision count. Don’t fall into the trap of making each potential revised draft a safety net. As in saying, “Oh, well, I’ll get it perfect in rewrite numero dos. I can take it easy on this first rewrite.” Approach each rewrite like it were your last chance to get things right.

This post is not intended to be a creative writing lesson. Take it with a grain of salt. If you’re doing something that works for you, that sends you to bed satisfied and a little rubbery, well, keep it up, muchacho.

If you don’t write and don’t care about the process…at least you must like to read.

Happy Friday.

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