I just turned in the second pass of edits for the first of my Love & War in Dallas series.  When I finished, I realized that this is a very hard process to explain to people (husbands, children) who don't understand why other hypothetical writing people  can't focus on anything (e.g., laundry, personal hygiene) until edits are done. So I thought I'd try to illustrate the editing process from a writer's point of view, using the magic of a new technology that captures the fundamental nature of human experience (GIFs).

By the way, this story will be told in third person, deep POV.  If you don't know what that is, well, I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful writer, Regina Falange, just going about her daily life.

Then she gets an email from her editor, which is very exciting!

Or it could contain horrible news. So the beautiful writer is waylaid by some important procrastinating.

 

But finally, Regina finds the time to open the e-mail and remains completely calm even while faced with what looks like a Dexter Morgan crime scene.

 

 

First, Regina texts her  writer friends to let them know the good news!  They know exactly what to say.

 

 

Regina also lets everyone on Twitter know that she will be #editing. As always, Twitter is totally supportive.

After clearing her schedule, Regina sits down and gets ready to review her editor's notes. As with every good critique, Editor starts off with all that is right in the book.

 

Then she points out  more positives!

Then she makes a few teeny tiny suggestions to "polish" the document and get rid of the "rough edges."

Regina was calm and professional,

And decided to get started on the minor tweaks her editor suggested.

50,000 calories later, Regina was a little overwhelmed by the challenges presented by re-writing a jillion words.

But then... after some more of this:

 

And going down some wrong-way streets:

Things started clicking. Light bulbs started to, you know, shine and stuff.  And suddenly, Regina looked at her editor's suggestions with a fresh appreciation.

 

And while it was hard, grueling, difficult, challenging, backbreaking work to think of synonyms for every word in the document, Regina got excited by what was happening.

 

Regina tells herself that she knew what she was doing all along.

And all her writer friends agreed that they knew she could do it all along.

 

When she couldn't edit the hell out of that book anymore, she hit "send."

 

Regina felt invigorated by the whole, life-affirming process that reminded her why she wanted to write Happily Ever After stories to share with the world.

THE END.

Author's Note:

The above story is fictional and bears no resemblance to anyone, living or dead, and especially not me, Lindsay Emory, who is a competent, professional, chill writer chick who really, really loves editing especially because it makes her beloved novel 1000% better.

Also, if you caught it, the above verb tenses were switched on purpose. For art. And reasons, OK? Geez. Let it go, already.