"Editing is just like writing, except hateful, and in reverse. Instead of birthing words and ideas out of nothing, you’re murdering them in cold blood, culling them like sickly sheep weakening the flock. And since you’re the one that brought them into the world in the first place, you feel a certain attachment to every single thing you mercilessly cut. Every time you delete a paragraph, you remember the three hours when you had to stop halfway through that sentence to research the sex lives of Romantic-era poets and what molecular alterations would turn human skin into a high explosive (yes, those were both real, actual things I had to do for the new book). But that can’t matter when you’re in editing mode; something works, or it doesn’t, and it has to go.
After a while, it does get easier though. But only because you will rediscover, with every single sentence, what an incredibly talentless asshole you really are. Every stilted phrase, obvious typo or terrible analogy will have you grimacing and swearing tiny vendettas at the horrible hack who wrote all this garbage you now have to fix.
"
How to Become an Author, in 5 Incredibly Difficult Steps
Link via Eve, who said, “#1 should be skipped unless you really, really want to feel bad about your bank balance.” I concur.
(via elkdogmen)
I am always simultaneously depressed as hell and kind of exhilarated when I read things like this. Like: yes, okay! I can do these things! Do I get my Real Writer Certification yet? No? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT’S NOT A REAL THING?
(via parasols)
(via parasols)
