‘It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly.’
– C. J. Cherryh
Is it actually a thing to be finished editing? This isn’t the first blog post I’ve ever written about editing and I’m sure it won’t be the last (joy of joys.) I remember reading something (about 90% sure it was a screenshot from tumblr) once on Facebook that went along the lines of:
‘What do you do when you’re finished it?’ – it being your writing, art etc
‘Stare at it until I hate it.’
But how do you know you’ve finished? With shorter pieces there’s a more obvious moment. There are less words to grow to hate, less space for your grammar to stumble awkwardly around. But with a novel, something that’s sitting closer to the 100,000 words mark than the 50,000 there’s this ocean of space. There are so many places for a wrong word or sneaky comma to hide. Finding them becomes a puzzle, one you’ve been working on for months – years – so long the story has become more familiar to you, than the faces of your frankly, quite alarmed family. I’ve lost count how many times my mum’s squinted at me and said, ‘You’re looking very pale.’ It’s because I don’t go outside. Because the glare of the sun makes my laptop screen go dark and sends my iPod into a overheated hissy fit.
But will all of this ever be worth it? Will I ever truly finish something? Or is reaching the finishing line just a myth for creative people? Do published authors feel like their printed babies are finished? Or is it more a case of agents prising manuscripts from their writers’ reluctant hands?
Asking for a friend. Because I’m currently not hunched over my laptop in a dimly lit room wondering…
Fairytale Corner 