Self-Editing
As much as I admire professional editors, I am still not making enough money from my writing to justify using a professional editor. Yes, I hear you, maybe if I did have a professional editor, I would make more money from my writing. Chicken and egg! I am an advocate of write, write, write, for the first draft. Just get it all down on the paper. I don’t worry about editing as I go along because I don’t want to go down the rabbit holes. Even research is left out of my writing in this first stage. I keep each piece of work in a separate folder with a label of the project on it. If I do have a genius idea I can put it on another piece of paper and just put it together with my draft for later reflection. 1. 1. The Big Sweep On the second draft I look at the whole piece, whether large or small and make sure the consistency and if fiction, plot development is as I want it. At this stage, I am pulling out the bits that aren’t relevant. Yes, deleting. I find that very difficult