About to disappear for most of the day, so I'm not ignoring points, I just won't have time to respond to them until sometime this evening.

Really, I'm mostly just whining here. I'll get through this, and I'll figure out a way to achieve the effect I want. It's just that I was already feeling daunted by the amount of editing I knew I'd have to do before I got my CPs' comments on this week's scene, so I'm all, "What, you're telling me this part needs a major overhaul TOO? Noooo!!!!"

Because I think the reason my first book didn't sell or land me an agent is largely because I didn't edit it enough. So I know I need to do better this time, but I'm daunted by the magnitude of the task.

OK, being pulled toward the door....

Back when I was writing seriously, a fellow writer told me that writing the book was only the beginning. Editing and rewriting were going to be the major parts of the job, "where you put flesh and skin on the bones." So when I finished a manuscript, I shouldn't feel like I was done; I was just ready to begin.

Her advice may be why I never quite finished that first book. :)

Zenkitty, thing is, not everyone writes that way; I'm in the camp of "editing as I write, listen to input, incorporate as needed, consider all comments, and never turn in a draft" boat. Basically, I've never turned in a draft to my agent or editor; I turn in books. Editing, yep, but that's with the official copy-editor, down the road.

It's not a large boat, but there are a few of us in it. There are really an awful lot of ways to tell the story.

I don't do a lot of rewriting/editing. Which I believe is evident in my work.

I do depend an awful lot on beta readers to let me know when I've driven off the road and into a tree.

If my book sells, I expect the editor to take a hammer to my skull.

Deb, I'm like that, too; I edit as I write. My problem is, I do it too much (I think). I can never get finished because I keep going back to change things as I go. I might actually do better if I "wrote down the bones" first. The only thing I've ever finished is a fanfic (!) and I still find things I would change about it. (I don't change it because once I put it up on my website, I considered it "published," so that I would stop writing it .)

I am editing my first mystery for the third time. I hate it. Not the book, poring over the pages. But I can't have crime fiction with a bad crime. I just can't. But editing is BORING. Episode one boring. Does good things for the pages, though.

Allyson, my non-fiction stuff, book reviews and whatnot? Those I actually go over with a fine-toothed comb.

But with the fiction, no. I'm with you on the beta-readers, the WIP readers, and getting that input. I'd go bonkers without it.

My problem is, I do it too much (I think). I can never get finished because I keep going back to change things as I go.

Ah, got it. No, I don't do that. It's one big benefit of being a linear story-teller, the whole "start at the beginning and go on until you reach the end" thing. I just sent the current version of "Cruel Sister" to the dozen people on my WIP reading list, having just finished Chapter Eight. I've neither looked at the prologue or the first five or six chapters since I incorporated any of the WIP reader suggestions, nor will I, unless something comes up that necessitates inserting something.

But for now, the only edits I'm looking at - and the only chapters I'm looking at - are the two most recent, and the one I'm about to begin.

I understand the feeling of "Wow, this person does what I do so much better", Susan.

As I believe I said in my first post in this thread, my WIP is a re-write/re-imagining of a book I wrote 10 years ago. In the intervening time, someone (whose work I actually enjoy a lot) has published a series of books that contains characters, settings and situations that bear notable similarity to my own. In fact, a friend of mine introduced me to the series by saying "This guy is writing the books you should be writing." So there is a constant worry in my mind about how my own work is going to match up, and if I'm going to percieved as some kind of hack who's trying to copy this other author's work. Especially since the published author's sense of wit and world-building makes me feel like I'm just fumbling about in comparison.

Logically, I should probably just scrap my ideas and try to come up with something different, but this is the story I want to tell right now. These characters have been rattling around in my brain for a decade and I need to get their story out.

Aren't we all? I'm never gonna be Raymond Chandler or Flannery O'Connor(or their unholy demon-spawn) but all I can do is honor them by bringing my best. Pelecanos(who likes carrots) says the writer's obligation is to "do good, honest work" If you're doing that, you're good. Of course, he often acts like writing is like selling shoes or stereos and the other stuff he used to do. Another gig. They asked him why he was such a star in the UK and he said "My dark, swarthy good looks,"

I'm in the camp of "editing as I write, listen to input, incorporate as needed, consider all comments, and never turn in a draft" boat.

I like that boat. If I know something needs fixed in the pages behind me, I cannot go on until it's fixed. It's a rock in my mental shoe that becomes more and more annoying until it gets dealt with.

If I think of something that's going to need massive rewrite--removing a character completely or discovering that the opening chapter can't stay, then I'll make some notes of what needs changed back in those pages and continue on as if I've already made the change. It's a pain to mentally drag along the dead weight, but some things are too big to fix right at the time.