Writing Wednesdays: The Edit Cave or Why This Post is Late

Yep, I woke up this morning thinking it was Thursday because my brain is fried. See, I've been doing edits for THE SUMMER I BECAME A NERD, and seeing as this is my first time going through this process, I was a little overwhelmed at first. It's a strange thing. I was so excited to get to work, to make this book really shine, then the email came and uhhhh....

What have I gotten myself into?

There were cut paragraphs, comments lining the sides, all kinds of changes to be made. So, yeah, I might've cried... Just a little.

But once that was over (and that's one of the key parts, people. You HAVE to get over it and remember that your editor or agent doesn't hate your book. They love your book or they wouldn't have taken it on.), it was time to buckle down and just work. My problem was figuring out a process to make sure I didn't miss anything, even though I'm sure I did, but I tried my best.

So, I thought I'd share what I did. Maybe it'll help, maybe there's a better way to do it, I don't know, but here it is anyway.

1. I did a read-through. I soaked in all the comments, making note of things I didn't understand so I could  put them into a question email/question chat session later. I made note of things that I needed to be constantly on the look out for. I'll be honest, I over-use dialogue tags like a mofo. And parentheses. And a whole bunch of other words. But they all have to be fixed in order to come out with the best book you can.

All these little things can be overwhelming at first and you might feel a little brain-explody, but once again, you just have to get over it.

2. I thought... and thought... andthought andthought andthought. About how to fix things. I bounced some ideas off my writing buddies. And when I got frustrated, I looked at this which was provided by Stef:

3. Finally, I just did it. I went to work.

I make it sound easy. It's not. It's hard work, this whole writing gig. But as Stef and my editor's assistant told me when I'd whine and complain, "If it was easy, every one would do it."