I am so excited to announce that my brand new book Embracing Me is now published and available! And excited that I don’t have to do anymore edits to that book. I love writing (as I hope most authors do) but I hate doing the edits, however it is a major part of the writing process.
The first, and even second, edits are fine because I tend to flesh out the story more. The edits that need to be completed after that are the nitty gritty small grammar and consistency issues. Those are the edits that I hate doing, but of course I still do them. If you are like me and hate doing edits I have come up with a few ways that may help you get through that part so that you can get to the best part, a published book!
- look outside of yourself – you wrote the book which can often make it hard to do the edits because you have seen the content so many times that it will look and sound correct even if it isn’t. Find a trusted friend, colleague, or someone whose job is to do edits.
- take breaks – ultimately as the author you will have to finish the edits even if you get someone else to help you. Therefore you should take breaks so that you can view the content with fresh eyes.
- read it backwards – this is something that I was taught in high school. Read the book starting with the last sentence and going back (read the sentence forward). This is to help ensure that each sentence is a complete thought. If you read the sentence and it doesn’t make any sense it may need some edits.
- bookmark thesaurus.com – everyone has a bad tendency to use a certain word over and over again (I am guilty of the word ‘so’). Having a thesaurus handy can help expand the vocabulary of your book when your brain doesn’t want to think
Finally, just do it and get it over with. Then give yourself a little break before starting onto your next project, and the edits that are inevitable.
