Editing

 Some dread it, some love it. I fall into the latter category. I love editing because it gives me the freedom to write total crap in the first place, and then spruce it up over and over and over until it's as close to perfect as I can get it.

I also know people who are the opposite. They hate editing. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because editing brings to mind correcting spelling and grammar. That' not the kind of editing I'm talking about. In fact, that's not editing at all. That's proof-reading, which the computer can do for you in many cases.

Real editing is rewriting. In some cases, that's literal: I copy what I've written onto yet more paper, changing small stuff (sentence structure, diction, punctuation, etc.) and occasionally big stuff (adding a scene, breaking one chapter into two, etc.) You could also transfer your writing straight from the page to the processor, and edit on there without the copy-work - but sometimes it's easier to spot places for improvement when you have to rewrite every word over again.

Do you edit? How do you edit? Everyone edits, really. Even in the first act of writing, we scribble out words or insert new ones. No one can resist the urge to improve their writing.

Your assignment: take something you've written recently and try to rewrite it by hand. Does it change the outcome of your editing?