Halfway home – not house

It certainly feels as though many of us have been [and continue to be] under house arrest. I suppose we should all be grateful that tracking ankle bracelets are not mandated as are face masks. My title though is about my current editing of my spanking novel Grace. There are several dirty little secrets about the conflict between writing and editing.

The first is that editing never, ever reduces the word count. [Unless entire pages of plot are discarded for the sake of expediency. Which will happen soon in my novel.] Of the original word count of 108,000 I have edited the first 41,000 words. However, the current word count stands at 51,000. Thus, a net increase of 10,000 words in a manuscript that was too long and wordy already. *sigh*

The second secret about editing is that it is never done. Ever. This is at least the twentieth time I’ve gone through my manuscript and as mentioned in my head-hopping post, I’m still finding POV errors from ten years ago. And, since I’ve switched back and forth from 1st person to 3rd person past and present who knows how many times, the he/I and she/I pronouns are all over the map. As a part B of never-ending editing, every single book I have ever read; new or old, has editing errors in the text. Doesn’t matter how famous the author or how prestigious the publisher, there are always errors in grammar and punctuation.

The third secret is this: Editing sucks. Which is why authors turn it over to editors as soon as possible. Authors write. Editors edit. Even though every single word an author writes is perfect and editors never stop trying to ruin a brilliant story with ‘recommendations’, it’s a relationship, that in the end, creates a better story. Not matter how many times an author states they are halfway home.