Novel Writing 7: Back on the Editing Wagon.

Back to it!

Full disclosure: I am not a fan of editing. That’s fairly obvious if you read my Twitter feed, actually – my activity often spikes when I sit down for a heavy session of copy & narrative editing. However, I’ve come to a point where I need to get back into editing my novel manuscript, as I’ve now let it sit for a couple of months since finishing my first draft.

There’s a lot to be said for giving you writing space. Now that I’m coming back to what I’ve written, I’m finding things that really impress me (yay!) and a bunch of things where I’m like “what was I thinking writing it that way?” Overall though, I’m happy with where the novel is at in terms of story and character arcs – this edit is all about the copy.

I’ll be using the Hemingway App to do my edit this time – I’ve used Hemingway before, and you can see the results in this post from last year. Overall, I’m looking to eliminate overused crutch words and cliches from my manuscript, and tighten up a couple of narrative pieces that need work.

On the publishing front, I’ve been attending the Melbourne Writers Festival this weekend, which has been a blast. For me, the weekend has been about connecting with other authors and learning more about the publishing process – both of which I managed to do in spades! As a result of the sessions I’ve attended, I’ve settled on getting another Manuscript Assessment done with Writers Victoria. I did one last year, which I found invaluable, so I’m looking forward to seeing how this one goes.

I’m convinced that there’s always a publisher out there for an outstanding manuscript, so I’m going to be making my work shine as this year draws to a close.

Wish me luck. 🙂