Self-Editing

I feel like I have gone on this rant in prior updates, but I am going to speed ahead without double checking because it is relevant again today.

As per usual, I have been writing again. Well, I have been looking at the 40 pages that I have so far smashing my head against walls trying to get the motivation to continue writing again. Yes, I have everything mapped everything out for the next hundred-or-so pages, but I find the will to go forward hard to find through the gluttony of worries that my idea is too far ahead of what I am capable of as a writer right now.

I have always been the last person to add to a project. I am a drummer. I am the guy who edits, cleans, and I was a salesperson selling someone else’s dream for my entire adult life to this point. Even the book I did write is a recollection of events I went through, and therefore did not require much imagination on my part.

All of my thoughts on the idea reminded me of editors and just how much I would love to be one. Kind of: I could only imagine the horrible script they read on the daily and just have to focus on tense, grammar, and speeling. I do not envy them in that regard, and I tip my hat in their direction. I have had my friend Luka edit my stuff in the past, and I had an editor (who did a less-than-perfect) on the first draft on You’re Not Dead.

The idea of editing my own stuff seems ludacris to me. Trusting me to fix a mistake that I made makes no sense. I made the mistake because, likely, I assumed that it was not a mistake. To assume that I would find it on subsequent read throughs is silly, to put it politely. Especially when it comes to things like tone and tense. There are things that I hear in my head, and there is a VERY good chance they are wrong.

I recently got my friend Hannah to read over what I have written so far in my next work. She criticised my dialogue as feeling manufactured. That is a comment I have gotten in the past, and a trap that I cannot seem to figure out how to rectify.

Well; check that. I do know that I can rectify it, and will in future publications. My frustration is that, in the piece, it was SOMEWHAT intentional. I AM NOT SAYING THAT SHE IS WRONG FOR CALLING ME OUT ON IT. This brings me back to my point of self-editing a work. I know what my end intention is; I know my writing can feel stilted, if not robotic at times. I just don’t know how to not be that way where the end justifies the beginning. I want my writing to be enjoyable all the way through, and not to just have an “ah-hah!” at the end. Unfortunately, shy of co-writing, I have to somehow fix the way my brain deals with conversation and abstract thoughts myself.

Self-editing is like teaching yourself sex through masturbation. Parts can be achieved, you may personally enjoy the end result, but everyone else will just be bored.