What I usually say at workshops, on the rare occasions I teach, is ‘Editing is not spellcheck’. And I really really mean this. It is not spellcheck, it is not grammar-check, it is – all too often (and certainly in my office right now) pulling it all apart and putting it back together and trying to hold a dozen different things in my head at once and trusting Editor and trusting myself and then going for it.
I do like the initial part of writing, the make-it-up bit. Sometimes I have a great time sitting at my desk and making stuff up, sometimes it feels like pulling teeth. But where I feel the real work comes in is in the edit. Long before the honing and polishing it’s the tackling and attacking and brutally cutting and shifting. It’s big manual labour words not soft smoothing words.
I’ve spent the past three days going through Editor’s many pages of notes. Lots of them were minor things I could, and did, do almost immediately. This line isn’t necessary, you can cut it; this line is clunky, can you fix it; this is repetitive; this sounds wrong. I am not precious about this stuff at all. This is where another person’s view, a person I trust, is so useful. Every now and then she has a suggestion I don’t agree with, or that I think I can make better in a different manner, but usually I go with the suggestion. It’s not a fight, we both want this to be a good book.
That stuff’s done now though and I’m up to the really messy/dive in and cut/shift/re-make/re-work etc etc part.
And this is my third edit too – one for me, one for Agent, now this one for Editor. I don’t think I’d be at this stage if I hadn’t done the two earlier ones. And every time it’s like this. I don’t think there is a shortcut. Which is fine, because I like this. It feels like sculpture (which I don’t do!) or wood carving (which I also don’t do), but something very SOLID. The book is there, Editor likes it, Agent likes it, I like it. Now I’m working to make it more clean, more clear, more the story it needs to be.
As of lunchtime today I now have a load of pieces of paper attached to my white board, they are the 16 (out of 41) chapters where I have proper writing-editing to do (as opposed to spellcheck/easy cut editing). They are in chapter order, as I know only too well that one re-write early on will of course have a ripple effect further into the book. But, even so, I may not tackle them in chapter order. I’m making it easy on myself – I’m going to work on the bits I WANT to work on, that I’m drawn to work on, interested in working on. (This is the Open-Space-for-novel-writing part!) And I’m so happy about getting to work on what I want to work on, not least because I know that eventually I will do it all, because I do want to work on it all, just not necessarily in chapter order.
I have to go meet someone now about some theatre things. And while I could happily stay here at my desk all night (and believe me, that is NOT something I always say) I’m looking forward to coming back to the book tomorrow. There are many knots to be unravelled/threads to tie in (both metaphors relevant), things to do. And I only have a few weeks to do them. Yay.
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Not Writing But Blogging 
I sometimes think this is the most exhilarating and exhausting part of the whole business. It’s when you measure yourself and what you’ve written against someone you trust. But don’t you sometimes feel as though you’re on the point of losing all control over it? Particularly as a result of what you call the ripple effect here, a small change in chapter five engendering a major rewrite in chapter thirty-six… I’m interested in your use of the white board. How does that work? Like my floor, I imagine…
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Hell yeah. This is exactly the point I worry about losing it all, both in terms of what I already have, and what I’m trying to get to. (Though there are, of course, other drafts saved and backed up, and if I really do screw it up I can always go back to the last draft and start again!)
White board – I’ve used this for two books (out of 12) so far, and I’m aware I have a different attitude to what’s on it. When I write up notes, by hand or print them up, on paper, then somehow they feel more REAL. (I know this is stupid, but it’s how I feel.) When I write on the white board with the wipe-away marker, it somehow feels less solid, more like I can still play with it, it’s an idea not a choice. Interestingly, even putting PRINTED matter on (magnetic) whiteboard still feels ‘freer’. Maybe it’s to do with where it sits – to the left of my desk???!!!
Of course one note form is NOT ‘freer’ than another, but – given the need to allow myself possibility even while (necessarily in an edit) closing avenues and making definitive choices, it feels like a more open way to work. It means there might still be some choices/mistakes that can lead to magic, rather than the mistakes that are just … mistakes!
(Apologies for the esoteric nature of this response, but sometimes, and maybe especially in the defining/refining stage, there’s a need to allow it to still be organic somehow.)
I also have notes on two other corkboards. and sometimes on the floor …
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some choices/mistakes that can lead to magic, rather than the mistakes that are just … mistakes!
I love what you said here, is very true, with editing, is one part I learnt on the last part of my course, I really sux at it!!!!
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Isn’t it amazing how we can trick ourselves like this? I sometimes change font or size when I can’t bear looking at what I’ve done any longer, or flick from justified to unjustified in an effort to see it more objectively.
Just off to buy a couple of white boards…
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