Liz Lemon

On Editing.

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.
tina amy walking

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

life is happening

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

andy 5 cats

 

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.

 

andy crying

 

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

there there

 

 

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

tina dont cry

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.

love it

 

Then she points out  more positives!

no bad ideas

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

leslie percent

Regina was calm and professional,

amy poehler really

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

tina fey food

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

tina fall down

But then... after some more of this:

rashida straw

 

And going down some wrong-way streets:

baby hooker

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.

literally greatest

 

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.

andy excited

 

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

tina high five

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

tina amy high five

 

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

bitches

 

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.

tina sleeping

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.