You’ve probably noticed a tinge of angst in my last few posts regarding the editing process. The process is bringing out a bit of self-hatred. It’s the good kind of self-hatred where you want to hold everything to the flame until it burns. When I’m done everything will be pure.

It’s similar to self-improvement in other areas of my life. I won’t be happy til I’ve put it through the meatgrinder…

Here are some self-improving, flame-broiled observations from the editing process:

• I don’t write as well as I thought I did as far as the language is concerned. All those books I read on proper writing, style, usage, etc.? Read em’ again. After that, read them yet again!

• My navel-gazing, reflective, tangental thought processes end up in my writing too much. All I do is think, think, think. That doesn’t mean my characters have to share the same annoying tendency. It’s not good for the story.

• Watching movies while I’m editing is cool. It keeps my mind focused on dialogue and the way things play out on screen. It also helps me through the process. I can only edit about ten to twenty pages each session before I start to burn out. Watching a movie while I casually mark up my manuscript is a nice way to buffer my burnout. “See, look! That writer did it in dialogue and it worked!” It provides ideas for execution in certain places.

• And last but not least, it’s a good thing I waited three weeks. I’m glad I don’t edit as I go. I’d never get anything done. Mr. Cranky Pants Editor is too harsh for the initial creative process itself. He’d kill it. I’m glad I kept him locked up for three weeks after I finished the rough draft.

It’s an interesting process. Every bit as interesting as writing the first draft. I apologize for any crankiness. Cranky Editor is running the show right now.

Editing on Cameron Fields & the Thieves of Time has begun!

And wow, do I ever hate what I’ve written. Taking a red marker to every single page. It’s a strange mixture of corrective fun and self-hatred. I still write WAY too passively. Action! Verbs! These things are my friend. I also explain too much. It’s almost painful to read.

I’m trying to keep my head wrapped around everything I need to do. The reason this is difficult is because there are several areas, or layers, that I need address.

Ideas: Private Eye stuff, surveillance, more cool happenings with my McGuffin.

Sectional rewrites; Entire portions that are changed or re-inserted in entirely different, slicker, cooler ways.

Language: grammer, writing itself, etc.

That list is in order for obvious reasons. I don’t want to fix language or grammar on sections that are going to be rewritten. So I’ve got to keep all the layers and contexts of editing in mind.

I’m also reading books on private investigation, special forces, C.I.A., all that great stuff and trying to incorporate cool things wherever I can.

So where writing the story was total fly-by-seat-of-pants chaos, editing is a different kind of chaos. A chaos formed out of several layers of organization mixing with one another. In that sense, it’s not really chaos, but a dense web of narrative information.

When my head hurts, maybe it’s time for mind-mapping?