Good morning. At my husband’s urging I have started reading Everyday Editing by Jeff Anderson. It seemed apropos given I am in the middle of a second edit with my novel. Every spare moment we can sneak away from our kiddo, I am reading my novel out loud to my long suffering hubby who kindly argues with me and every grammatical question, comma placement, and stylistic gamble I make. You can’t hire that level of involvement.
We’ve all heard seven thousand times it’s not writing that makes it a novel, but rewriting. And yet how do we effectively rewrite something we created from nothing, our own blood and energy?
I’ve read about half the book so far and it seems like Anderson has an idea or two that might just help me. Maybe you too? The book is designed for teachers/workshop leaders looking for a way to effectively bring editing/rewriting into the writing process and make it less dreaded. Some thoughts from Anderson more or less.
- Correcting doesn’t develop skills, it corrects. – My poor husband corrected every paper I wrote in college and still I make the same mistakes in my novels.
- Part of editing is listening to our writing, making it feel right. – thus explaining why someone else can not edit for you.
- Great writers are great readers. Make a regular habit of spending time reading great sentences and talking about them.
- Editing instruction starts with observing how powerful texts work.
- People absorb what they see.
- Editing is about looking inside what writers do and figuring out what works and what does not.
I’ll leave you with a final thought from Anderson…if you are writing, then all is good.
I will break down the learning portion of the book and present them over the coming weeks.
T.A. Henry 