The Editing Phase

Amidst all my excitement on learning dictation, I am still in the middle of another tumultuous and enlightening phase of my writing journey – the editing phase.

It is hard to put a draft aside for as long as I did, which was roughly a month. In the world of indie publishing, a month is like a death sentence. But, now I am looking at my draft with fresh eyes and the revision is so much more enjoyable.

This is the point where I already know the characters enough to smooth out all the discovery pieces peppered throughout the book. Those are the sections of prose where a character was just starting to emerge and their words and actions don’t align with their ultimate final characterisation.

Lionel is one such character I am going through this process with right now. He is easily one of my favorites, but his early chapters definitely need some work. A little tweak to his dialogue here, a change of secondary action there, and voila – a revised moment.

In this fast paced world of self publishing, it is easy to get caught up in all the hoopla. However, I find it gratifying to enjoy the process above all else. There is plenty of time for marketing and all that jazz later!