are they serious?

Current tuneage: The Scientist - Coldplay

Ok, so I know I've been bad for the last week and I haven't blogged. Blame it on the weather...or my mood... or something else I have little control over. Either way, I'm here now and that's all that matters, right?

So there are a few blogs (mostly writing/agent/editor blogs) that I read daily. And one entry yesterday really caught my attention. It was about rewriting and drafting a novel (which I'm in the process of doing for one of my novels). I struggle with this step in the writing process, because although I generally get pretty excited about it (I am improving it and deleting things - which is always fun) but on the other hand it's A LOT of work. Well this particular blogger made the statement that the only way to edit your own work was to print it out.

Now, I've heard this statement made before. Particularly just before I began editing my first novel. I rolled my eyes, thinking that these people obviously were crazy to think I was going to print off 250+ pages and read through them with my little red pen. Isn't just reading it on the computer and editing it as you go SOOOOO much easier?? Why yes, I think so.

WRONG!

I got to thinking yesterday that perhaps these "crazy" people may have something with the whole idea. Several months after finishing my first novel (having edited it 3 times) I thought it was ready to go. Several months after that I began thinking that maybe it wasn't quite as polished as it possibly could have been. Could this be thanks to me having edited it on my computer instead of printing it off and making notes for separate problems in different colored pens? Who knows. Once it's been seen by my entire list of agents (and we're getting close) I will probably sit it down for another round of editing (yes, by printing it out first) and see what I come up with.

In the meantime, I'll take the advice of those who have been in the biz significantly longer than me and try it their way with novel number 2. I figure I don't have much to lose. :)

HAPPY TGIF!!