Sunday 19 September 2010

Why Writers Are Mad

I think I may have discovered the reason why all writers are mad. It's called editing.

I only wrote the story in question last year, but I'm actually rather surprised at how much I've improved since then ... not that that was hard judging by how bad it is! There's continuity issues, grammar issues and (thanks to my non-existant Spell Checker) more typos than I could count in a lifetime. I need to get it all to flow, and yet not bore my reader stiff with my overlong beginning.

I think I need to work out who I'm writing for first - younger teens or people my age? Probably the younger category, seeing as there's not much in the story that I can think of many people my age enjoying.
Still, there's hope right? And it'll teach me the value of patience.
That is, if I don't jump out of the window first :P

-Spook

3 comments:

  1. I understand, all too well, the madness of editing. I looked back at my earlier work on my blog and cringed. I am now in the process of rewriting several pieces. I don't think it ever ends. At some point, we'll have to stop each other before we end up in padded rooms wearing constricting white jackets, curled in the fetal position, chanting "find my happy place" over and over.

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  2. Indeed indeed ... but I hope I can complete the thing before I go too doolally xD

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  3. I know exactly how you feel. Editing funs, eh? I'm re-writing Watching from the beginning. There's actually not too much wrong with it - I'm just improving the structure of sentences and some of the speech that's a bit fake. Later on I've got a few big continuity issues (I've only had one so far, which is good), but I'll deal with that when I get to it.

    I'm 25 pages into 140 ... narrow margins, size 10 font ... that thing is almost 90 000 words!

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