Thursday, November 4, 2010

NaNo Day 3: To Tweak or Not to Tweak

Total Word Count:  6887
Results of procrastination efforts today:  6 ginormous scones and one mildly (okay, maybe not mildly) burned loaf of fruit bread.

Yesterday, I finished a round of edits, converted the file to a pdf, copied it to my ereader and took a quick look.  I found a mistake on the first page.  *Bangs head on keyboard*  Worst part is I'm almost certain I red-flagged that mistake two edits ago. 

Aside from that, and even though I still detest editing, I think I've learned a lot about self-editing this year.  I've always written short stories in as few words as possible but my novels tend to end up bloated and repetitive.  I can see this a lot more clearly than I used to so yeah, learning.  The problem is the temptation to go back to old work and see what I can do with it. 

Many writers have mentioned this, particularly with how insanely quick it is to alter an ebook, but when do you stop?  You put your heart and soul into a book - then you edit it right back out.  Done.  But no matter how many times you look at it again, there's going to be something you'd change for the better.  I could edit stuff I've shelved, no problem, but then in a year, I could probably improve on it again.  In five years, ten years.  Time brings more skills, we could improve on a novel until the end of time.

I'm not good at telling when something is ready, hence the mildly/not so mildly burned loaf.  Hopefully that's another skill one learns, somehow.

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