In Plain Sight

Revising is tough.

You’ve finished the manuscript. You’re overjoyed with the outcome. It’s like when you work out for a week and you’re starting to see abs form (hey, they’re small, but they count).

Problem is if you don’t keep it up it goes right back to before. Mush.

You don’t want your manuscript to remain mushy. It must be molded and the easiest way to do it is to dig into revisions. Everyone starts differently. Some do a read through to make sure it flows well. Some dive into line edits because they’ve already spent a year and a half revising the sh** out of it so most of it is already done.

The one thing I’ve learned in all of this is that you’ll never catch it all. That’s what critique partners, beta readers, agents, publishers, and editors are for. The several people it takes to make a fabulous novel. After all there will always be that off word IN PLAIN SIGHT that the reader will catch just in time for the big debut.

We aren’t supposed to edit the novel within an inch of its life. It takes away from the actual story. You want to keep the voice, the raw nature of the novel.

So next time you’re revising and kill yourself trying to find the last mistake you made in your novel, eat a cookie, and move on. You’ll know when it’s great. After all we can strive for perfection but we have to know we can’t always meet it.

So are you a stickler on fixing the last mistake? Or are you one to handle the rawness?