When You Finish Your Second Edit Of Your Book/Novel

So today was another achievement in my path to publication: I finished the second full edit of my manuscript. So what's a girl to do now? I mean am I done? Is it ready? Is it a masterpiece now?

No way!

What a girl's to do now is send it back to Fedex Office (which I did), have it printed out for the third time (yep), and begin round three of edits (tomorrow).

I hear so many people say that they want to write a book. But I think most of them don't realize the agony that is the writing process. Ok, I'm being a little dramatic, but it really is long and arduous and brain-breaking. Oh and yes, fun too. But the fun comes in between all that other stuff.

If you can somehow upchuck enough words to create a manuscript large enough to be called a book, you're one step ahead of most people. I'm happy that I'm finally in the "one step ahead of most people" category after two failed attempts over the past 8-9 years.

Now if you've gotten to where I am and are staring down at your edited piece of work, the question becomes this: Can you spend months or years editing your book so that it becomes something worthwhile? Can you hang? Can you keep on keepin' on? Can you slash and burn (text) when necessary?

I will say that I was surprised at the amount of editing my second iteration required. I thought it was closer. I thought the first round caught most of it.

Nope.

And this is exactly why you need multiple rounds, because it's never as good as you think it is. Not when you come back with fresh eyes. And I think that's the key - fresh eyes. And that's why you can't just rely on your own eyeballs to make an ultimate decision about how "good" your book is. Because by the time you get to round two and three and beyond, you're too close to it. You can't see the broken parts anymore. Heck, you can't see the awesome parts anymore either!

So I'll start my third round of edits tomorrow. I've printed out my book double-sided this time so that it'll read more like a book. It's bound nicely with coils and is currently sitting on my coffee table.

I've got about a week and a half to get through it with my red pen to meet my latest deadline with my editor. And then? I'll cross my fingers and hold on, and see if there's another round.