"The first draft of anything is shit." -Ernest Hemingway

This week I am going to focus on one of most encouraged, recommended and often despised subjects offered to writers, editing.

My book, Souls Eternal, is currently in the process of being edited. I made corrections about four times while writing the book and at least twice after I finished. Yet, it still needed to be cleaned up. For example, I noticed I pretty much wrote like I spoke. And my fingers would just move too fast for my brain to catch things. Also, you would think that after I went over it so many times, I would have caught some of the problems. I find that I also tend to add and delete things every time I read through it. I’m always making some sort of change.

It’s easy to think you are “above” it. I aced English in high school and college. I also have a pretty good grasp of grammar. Not enough to see the issues in my own writing. Every piece of advice I’ve read as I researched writing and publishing lists editing as one of, if not, the most important thing to do before attempting to submit anything to literary agents or self-publishing. I absolutely agree. You have to get another set of eyes on your work.

A lot of authors hate the thought of editing, because they do not want to change things about their work. I can understand and agree with this and it’s one of the many reasons I chose to self-publish. However, even if you choose not to make recommended changes to plots or subjects in your work, get it edited for grammar, spelling, and flow. Freelance editors often offer different packages at varying prices depending on how deep you want them to dig into your work.

I’m not going to lie, it’s a pain to make corrections and re-write. I have had moments that I dreaded pulling up the edits and going through them, because I knew it was going to take forever and be dreadfully boring to complete. I would much rather be working on writing my next book. But, in the end, I know it will be well worth the effort and my story will be easier to understand, which means it will be more enjoyable. The plus side to all the work is that you will take a lot of what you’ve learned from the experience and apply it as you write your next project.

There are many freelance editors out there in cyber land. All you have to do is search. However, I highly recommend my own, Amanda Bowyer. You can check her out here: http://bowyerwriteswords.com/