Sunday, August 28, 2011

Back!


Although I was never really gone, my pretties. I am, however, officially twenty five years old. As I age, I solace myself by knowing that no matter how old I get…I’ll always be five and a half years younger than my sister.

It’s important to keep things in perspective.

Anyway, in writing news: I completed the first draft of my newest WIP, a YA/Dystopian with a sci-fi bent titled GLITCH. It took a lot longer than I planned, over four months. Not the book’s fault. Crappy life stuff got in the way and there were some days I sat down in front of the computer and couldn’t hammer out gibberish. It’s tough sometimes.

But draft one is done. Now it’s time to sit back, take a writing break, and plan how I’m going to edit this thing. During previous down time, I actually made a list of things to do:

Editing
---Perfunctory read through, grammar check.
---Outline, include continuity check.
---Read aloud.
---Highlight adverbs and –ing words.
---Color partition. Check for not enough action, too much information/backstory.
---Words: there, though, although, before, after, once, at least, then, while, almost, even, what, pretty, how, just, only, probably, that, since, as, like, so, some, when, seem, been, could, would, should, I, we, ’re, n’t, ’s, ’d, ’ve, be, is, are, am, I’m, was, were, we’re, keep, kept, got, get, had, has, felt, feel, think, thought, try, tried, tries, may, might, grew, grow, look, found, find, knew, know, become, became, smell, sense, hear, come, came, go, goes, went, taste, see, saw, watch, believe
---In depth grammar check.
---Beta reads.


If there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s making lists and organizing. There’s obviously going to be more rounds of editing after the beta reads, but that’s going to depend on what I hear. It’s probably going to be a while before to those anyway : ).

Now I’m going to throw it back to you guys: how do you edit? Am I missing anything important?

10 comments:

  1. Wow, congrats on your WIP and good luck on the editing. Hope you had a great birthday too? Wish you many wonderful returns, and a book deal..:)

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  2. I'm going to be referring to this list in the future. :)

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  3. Wow, 25. I sorta' remember that year. I found out I was pregnant with our first a week after my birthday, so mostly that year was a whirlwind! Good luck with your editing!
    erica

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  4. Congrats, J! I'm really happy for you. Also? You are SO much more organized than I am when it comes to edits! Me, I just read it through a few times, chapter by chapter, and while I try to keep an eye out for one specific thing during each read-through, I usually end up noticing something different (like I'll be looking out for pacing and I'll notice an adverb or a grammar mistake). Good luck with the editing process. :-)

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  5. Well Happy Birthday, J.E.!

    Thanks for visiting my blog.

    I gave you a Shout-Out today! :)

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  6. Great thoughts on editing. And best of luck with your ms!

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  7. I think you've got it covered.

    As for me, I start by going through each chapter. I give it a read-through, highlighting anything that troubles me. And then I get to work.

    Good luck, and happy birthday. Ah, 25.

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  8. I go through in waves, looking for a specific thing (or several specific things). Then the next wave is something else. So on and so forth. I can say it was much more organized in the beginning, and became blurrier as I went, as to what I'd be editing. Good luck with it all!

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  9. Wow, that is an awesome editing plan! I did pretty much the same, though I don't think I checked on quite so many words as you've listed above!

    I think I did a once through basic line edit, then used 'find' for target words as you suggest above, and after that it was off to my Beta readers for comments, and I tightened any continuity, clarity and other problems as they came back with comments.

    Good luck editing - it really is worth it in the end.

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