Editing process is making me lose motivation

[alithegirlwho]

I am in the editing process and am finding it so hard to keep motivated. I love the writing part, and go back and reread/rewrite ect at the time, but now i’m looking at my books as a (almost finished) whole and it’s hard to keep motivated. It’s taking me a really long time and i'm frustrating myself (and honestly just don't want to do it).
Any tips?

[moderntimes]

Just keep plugging away. Personally editing your book before you submit it to an agent or publisher is absolutely mandatory.

For example, I finished my 3rd novel last April. Then I submitted it to a painstaking edit and rewrite, every word and every sentence tested for its rhythm and strength. It took me till October before I felt satisfied. Spending a few months with your editing is typical and requisite.

You've got to ensure yourself that your book is a perfect as you can make it prior to submission. One suggestion is to read the book aloud to yourself. This greatly helps you hear the book's dialogue and narrative and helps you develop a feel for the changes needed.

Believe me, you'll never regret the time you spend in the editing process, if only to ensure that there are zero mechanical errors or misspellings. Unless you're a famous politician or movie star, an agent or publisher will judge your submission harshly if there are more than a scattered few typos.

I don't know how to provide your with incentive. That has to come from within. Just realize that editing is a PART of the entire writing process, a very essential part. You gotta do it. Motivate yourself by holding up the goal of providing a precisely written and carefully edited manuscript for submission to that agent or publisher. And keep plugging away.

[zeldas_lullaby]

Can you outsource? Do you have any family members who will help for free, or do you know any college students who might look it over for $20 or so?

As per motivation, hm... I remember that after I proofed my last novel, I was burnt out big time. OK, here's your motivation: if you go to the Barnes & Noble web site, they'll print out your book for you in hardcover and ship it to you. This doesn't publish your book, it just gives you a gorgeous copy. But you don't want a gorgeous copy until you've proofed, right?

[ALynnPowers]

I was always told that you need to set it aside for a while between the writing part and the editing part, so that you can look at it as a completely separate book with fresh eyes. You'll actually end up seeing a lot more stuff that you like about the book, and the parts that are not so good will stick out a little bit more.

But, yeah, like zelda said, you wouldn't want to see a beautiful copy of your book if it wasn't perfect, right?

[moderntimes]

I agree with the outsourcing but only after you've thoroughly proofread and edited the book yourself. Personal editing and revision is a process that ALL writers go through. It's just one of the steps needed to ensure that your book is as perfect as can be.

Take a small break, as Alynn recommended, then get into it full bore, and go at the editing hammer and tongs. It has to be done and it's a labor of love. Or so you can tell yourself at 2am, ha ha.

[theredhairedcrow]

If you can, it helps to have a good team of proofreaders or volunteer editors. When I first started off through to middling, I traded with other writers who needed the service also, or even dedicated readers who are willing to do so for authors. There are a number of sites out there where you can make contact with groups or people who do so, usually for a specific genre.

That being said, I usually try to write as much as a work as I can without doing any major editing, because it does slow me down in the process of creation, plus I second-guess myself too often. Afterwards, I then just force myself to go through editing and/or revisions whether I really want to or not, doing as much as possible. If I reach a point where I just cannot go on, sometimes I have had to take a few months or even a year or more off of editing because it was overwhelming or complex at the time. I worked on other things during that time, and come back to the former manuscript when refreshed and enthusiastic again.

[zeldas_lullaby]

Yeah, I did that once--I took a four-month break and just worked on remodeling the kitchen. (Didn't get it done, but made a lot of progress in there.) When I came back to the writing, I discovered a lot of great improvements to make (regarding word usage--not storyline so much) because my head was clear, I guess. The good news is that I made mental note of most of those things, so writing more should be easier at this point.

[moderntimes]

Like redhair, I write in bursts of energy and pay very little attention to typography and grammar first pass. I just shove the words onto the screen and save everything.

I am however a pretty fair typist (fast too) and generally accurate, so there aren't a lot of mechanical errors. But composition "errors" are rampant. I overuse certain terms "... it was a bit like..." is my worst. I fiddle with "for whom" and "who" construction, and of course massage the dialogue and narrative over and over until it's as perfect as I can make it. This takes months for a novel.

It's the price to pay for being a writer -- you must rewrite and rehash until it's excellent, and then you still make changes. Comes with the territory.

[sarahpayne23]

Have you tried using a professional editing service? I had a recommendation of (removed by mod) and found them very helpful. After doing some research, I felt their price was very reasonable (compared to many of the other editors out there) and they helped me way more than volunteers (family, friends, strangers, etc.) did.

[CCtheBrave]

@moderntimes I completely agree with you, I think it's very important to do the editing yourself, to learn how to look critically at your work and understand where you're falling short. And I'm in the same boat as most of the people in this thread: I have to take long breaks and come back to a piece of writing after a certain time period. It all comes in short bursts

[moderntimes]

Myself, I'm pretty exacting with my own writing. My "day job" career in science and technology, with tons of tech writing, gave me the mental imagery to really double down on any text and ferret out the error and glitches. In my most recent novel, the editors at my publisher found only one typo.

So I don't seem to need a pro paid-for edit -- of course my publisher edits and reviews the novels as a part of the biz.

But getting bogged down in editing? I understand that this can happen.

What I recommend is that the writer accept editing and revision and rewriting as part of the whole process, not as a separate task which is tacked onto the creative effort used to write the book in the first place. In other words, editing is part of the whole, and it's an elemental segment of the work in progress.

Besides, reviewing and editing can help you find glitches in the text, and from a thorough review, you can find places where you might describe something better with a little tweak or two. A comprehensive edit of your writing is essential anyway, where you will often fix things which were earlier overlooked.

It's a mental attitude, I think. When you "finish" the book it's not really finished. It's only finished after you've thoroughly re-read and edited the book (or short story, whatever) until you feel that it's gleaming with gloss from perfection, ha ha.