On Books and Essays Not Yet Written

            In my spare time I'm a struggling independent writer. In the spare time between that spare time I'm an even more struggling cover designer. This is a cover for a novel I haven't yet written.

            Fancy, ain't it? But it's actually a misnomer to say that I haven't written it. I have written some of it. In fact, I've completed a first draft. But I still don't consider it "written". Largely due to the mammoth task of the editing process that lies ahead of it. It's a crucial part of the writing process, whether you're writing a full novel, a short story, a newspaper article, or indeed a scholarly essay. Often you'll have people who think this process doesn't matter one jot, who'll write work out at a furious pace, and barely is the virtual ink allowed to dry on the Word document's first draft before it's printed off/submitted/published/mailed off in an excitable flurry of accomplishment.

            Those people are, to put it frankly, fools. Fools that Mr. T would pity. And you don't want Mr. T to pity you, do you? No? Good.

            With that said, then, here is a handy guide to the editing process that I have lovingly prepared for you. Follow it, if you like. Change it, if you want. Ignore it completely, if that is your way.  But don't say I didn't warn you.

First draft, wherein the creative process begins:

            Write. You write, dammit. And keep writing. Keep at it. Throw everything in there. Who gives a damn about tyops typos? Write until you can't write anymore, and then keep writing. And don't give me any nonsense about writer's block. Take your carefully constructed writing plan that you came up with before and screw it into a ball and throw it over your shoulder like a plate at a Greek restaurant. Write about something unplanned. If it's an essay, take a sudden different tact. Write a paragraph that's completely opposite to your own view, then try to counter it. If it's fiction, throw a character under an unexpected bus. Maybe literally. Add in something totally leftfield. Maybe a dramatic twist where your main character is actually a twin! Or secretly undercover! Or a robot from the future! He's dead all along! His friend doesn't really exist! Everything's a dream!

Second draft, wherein we smash the paper into teeny bits:

            Take all of those dramatic twists out. They're rubbish. Especially that robot from the future nonsense. What's a robot from the future doing there anyway? Terrible idea. But aside from that, what have you got? A complete manuscript, from start to finish. Sure, it might waver and blip and stumble occasionally, but it crosses the finish line like a true champion. Now you need to just smooth those wrinkles out. What makes sense? What doesn't? Could you move scenes about?

            (pro-tip - write paragraph/chapter synopses on post-it notes and shuffle them into a random order, then lay them down in front of you in an order that makes sense)

Third draft, wherein we commit brutal murder:

            Time to kill your darlings. Perhaps even literally. Is a character really awesome but utterly superfluous to everything that happens? Over a cliff he goes. Is a scene or paragraph that you had a ball writing maybe a bit jarring and doesn't seem to fit anywhere, no matter how many times you shuffle those post-its? Tear it into shreds and scatter it like wedding confetti. Take out those you love for the sake of solidicity. Which is a word I just invented, meaning "to make something solid". In the third draft of this, I shall take it out for being a stupid made-up word.

Fourth draft, wherein we pluck and preen at stray hairs:

            It's typo time! With a fine toothcomb (or just a pen if you don't happen to have a toothcomb handy), roll through those words one at a time. It doesn't matter if you've written 500 or 500,000. Get cracking. Look for spelling, punctuation, grammar. Underline them, highlight them, fix them. I'll wait here for you.

            ...

            Done? Okay. Now do it a second time. Better yet, recruit someone else to do it for you. You'd be amazed at how they can spot you've misspelled "elephant" as "elferlent" and you missed it every single time you read it. Though I'm not even sure how you could type "elferlent" in the first place. Maybe invest in one of those natural-shape keyboards next time.

Fifth draft, wherein we take a break:

            Manuscripts are like fine wines. They need time to breathe. Put it to one side and go do something else. Play a game of racquetball or see Disney on Ice or something. Just do anything that doesn't involve thinking about the text. If it's a short piece or an essay, leave it for a day, two if you can spare the deadline. If it's a longer novella, a week or fortnight. If you've got yourself a full complete novel on your hands, leave it for a month. Let it breathe on its own, let your personal attachment to the piece fade until you're not quite so subjective. Step back from your scenes and characters and citations to make sure it's love, not lust, you're feeling.

            Once you've waited long enough, read it through again. Spot anything you don't like? Lop the bugger out and rewrite. See any inconsistencies or errors? Fix them as you go.

            Gosh, this is getting close to finished, isn't it? It's exciting!

Sixth draft, wherein other people get involved:

            The key draft. Give it to someone else to critique. Unless you're particularly solipsistic, you're writing for a specific audience. Get one of those audience members to read it and shower you with feedback. Fix what they give you. Highlight what they adored. Frame it in glory. And then consider rewriting or rearranging parts so that the adoration flows through consistently and doesn't get bunched up into small pockets. Ever read a book that went "THIS BIT'S GREAT, but this bit's awful and now it's BACK TO GREAT AGAIN but now this next part is a chore to get through"? It's like riding a rollercoaster while hungover - the giddy highs dazzle and excite you, but ultimately it'll leave you a little bit woozy and probably quite sick. Smoooooooooth it out.

Seventh draft, wherein page layout is king:

            Forrrrrrmat. It's a horrible word for a horrible task, but someone's got to do it, and it ain't gonna be me, buster. Submitting for something specific? A story contest? Non-fiction competition? Scholarly essay? Publishing house? They all have guidelines on formatting. Margins, font-size and type, indentations, line spacing, italicizing, bolding, tweening, kerning...I don't know what those last two are, but the rest are important.

            At this point you're probably looking at your first draft placed alongside your seventh draft and wondering what the heck happened. I'll tell you what happened, my friend. You just wrote something. Wrote. Something. To completion. To edited finality. A finished article, ready for your audience to engage, indulge and enjoy. A genuine completed, polished text, ready for A Grades or number one chart rankings or countless web hits or whatever other measure of success you may in fact use. It's done, it's finished. You completed the insurmountable challenge of turning a lump of coal into a diamond, a misshapen ball of clay into an ornate sculpture, a bunch of wood into a log cabin, or whatever metaphor for raw-tools-into-something-good you may wish to use.

            You, good sir or madam, are a writer. Congratulations. Now do it all over again for the next piece.