I haven’t been writing much lately. My main goal really is to be more available to my kids, but I’ve also taken time to let my reading range wide and far. One of the things I’ve been studying up on is line edits. In case you didn’t know, I’m a developmental editor by trade and I rarely deal with details.
But that won’t do for my own books. So I’m searching and rewriting words like smile and hand and look.
It’s humbling to realize how much I missed because I’m too close to my project. And it made me realize how often I miss things in my daily life because I’m all up in it.
When I started this whole business of stepping back on my writing, I have to admit that I was not happy (and that might be an understatement). But with a little distance behind me, I’m starting to see good things.
I’ve seen places where I’ve missed life’s details and I need to search out the negative, annoying, repetitive weakness and rewrite it.
I can’t eliminate the weakness…they happen to be my strengths, too. But that doesn’t mean I get to leave the equivalent of a million references to “hand” in my life’s manuscript.
So I’m digging in, studying, and learning my habitual mistakes. And it’s humbling to admit that I’ve lived with them for so long. That like the book that’s been finished for a year, I’m still rife with elementary errors.
But the good news is I’ve discovered them and that’s the first step. If you need me, I’ll be over here making a few good edits.
And no doubt you are doing amazing! Nothing more humbling than a good edit. I’m in for it soon! I’ve kind of come to love the refining of it and what emerges, though never easy in the moment.