Writing: Editing An Abused Mind
I actually worked hard this weekend. With my vicious red pen in hand, I finished my edit of An Abused Mind and it’s almost ready to be sent out.
On Thursday, I set some goals for the weekend, mainly to finish some revision of my short story, An Abused Mind, before submitting it to publication in a short story magazine.
On Friday, I brought a copy of the manuscript into work and with my red pen in hand, I read through the story. I hadn’t looked at this story thoroughly for at least a year. Time really does give you some perspective, as well as the development I’ve inevitably had as a writer.
I was surprised at how vicious I was and how attuned I’d come to common writing mistakes. I found lots of passive voice, unnecessary words and things explained in longer sentences than needed.
As an aside, I found the look of the red pen covering the page aesthetically appealing. Don’t you agree?
After the rally on Friday, and for a bit into Saturday I slowly went through the manuscript, taking my time to find all of the things that needed fixing.
I pushed myself as procrastination tried to take over and finished marking it up last night. Straight away, I began my edit. Going through each mark I’d made in gorgeous red pen and making the changes.
Most of the editing was wording, either taking out unnecessary passive commentary that only told the story rather than showed it. Or I had to add some details that weren’t quite clear. There was one part of plot that needed to be changed, because after it was pointed out by a critter, it made no logical sense. Through changing that, I enhanced another character and the story is stronger for it.
I finished the edit this afternoon, and a sense of relief and accomplishment washed over me. I had said I was going to do this for ages and now I’d finally gotten off my ass and did it. The story is much better for it.
After I got back from theatre group, I gave it one last read through and weeded out some typos, printed it off again and gave a copy to Margo. The feedback was positive. I’ve sent it to another friend to read through.
And when I get it back, I plan to send it out to Midnight Echo, the magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association.
Accepted or rejected, I don’t plan to revise this story anymore. It’s done and if it gets rejected from ME, I plan to send it elsewhere until it finds a market.
Now it’s time to move onto something else.
Technorati Tags: An Abused Mind, short fiction, writing, editing, horror
There are 12 Comments to "Writing: Editing An Abused Mind"
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Awesome! I’m glad you got off your ass, too. I know how good it feels to put the final touches on a story.
Congrats on the editing : )
w00t! Yay for editing!
Isaac Espriu’s last blog post..It’s time to start a draft for a new novel
Thanks guys
I LOVE red pen, especially when it’s my own doing.
Congrats on getting it to a place where you’re happy with it, and good luck with the submission!
Melanie’s last blog post..Movie Night
Ahh, editing . . . Some stories only take a couple of passes to be done. Some feel like no matter how many times you go over it, it’ll never be done.
It’s a great feeling to be done with a story, isn’t it?
Congrats on getting the editing done! It can be a real pain sometimes.
I feel heaps more confident now Carol
Thanks Simi. It is a bit of a pain doing it over, but worth it when it’s done.
And thanks Melanie. Your comments got put in the spam filter for some reason.
[...] after submitting An Abused Mind to AHWA’s Midnight Echo, I’ve been motivated to seriously think about [...]
Congratulations. I hope it gets accepted. I wonder why you write less on politics and especially on globalization now a days? It is not that I agree with your ideas but I always feel that you are quite good at expressing your own opinion
I’m still posting on politics but back to also working on short stories. Though, you’re right, I haven’t said much about the economy at the moment. I do plan to soon though.