Editing a book can be the most boring and annoying part of the process, but I have actually started to enjoy it. While away at the Romance Writers conference in August, I met Rachael Herron, who is an amazing writer and now lives in New Zealand. She gave a really interesting talk on editing, and the many processes that she goes through. She uses sticky notes to make notes on what she wants to change, and then reads through them everytime she edits her book, so that she can keep them fresh in her mind.

I love sticky notes, I am addicted to them, and I have lots (and I mean LOTS) of them. And I discovered a use for them, other than collecting them. Creating notes for my editing. Basically I read through and make notes as I go, which are put on sticky notes and then I can use these to list the changes that I want to make, or to ask questions that need to be clarified in the story further.

Then when I go a deep edit, I use these notes to really nail down problems, create more content, and generally finish the story, polishing it.

It means that I’ve read the book about three times by the time I’ve finished editing, but I am very familiar with how I want the story to go, and how the characters interact, and tightened up the plot.

I think editing is probably the hardest part of writing, because sometimes you have to throw things out, but if you’re anything like me, as a writer, we keep multiple copies of everything, just in case that scene could be used somewhere else.

Hope you have a good week.

Take care

Catherine.