I love writing. It’s almost better than bacon. Not quite, but close. The only thing I hate about the writing process is typing “The End” because I know what comes after: Editing. While I agree it’s necessary and sometimes it can be fun (only sometimes), I pretty much hate everything about it. Don’t worry, I’m only sharing ten things I hate about editing today. If I shared them all, I’d have a book, and I’d have to edit that before you could read it.
1. It’s tedious.
So many words and so many grammar mistakes and this guy shouldn’t do this there, but he should do it somewhere. Shit, how old is this girl? Didn’t I kill that guy off? Who is Carl? Tracking all of my tangents is bullshit.
2. I make a lot of mistakes.
And editing just proves that I can't possibly find them all.
3. My eyes hurt.
I can write for hours. Staring at the screen doesn’t bother me a bit. But to sit there, doing the same thing to edit, suddenly my eyes burn like the fires of hell are behind them.
4. It takes soooo long.
Longer than writing the damn thing. I don’t have time to take so long.
5. It makes things shorter.
Shorter is rarely a good thing.
6. It makes me question my intelligence.
Because the evidence of my stupidity is staring boldly back at me.
7. Hangovers.
Editing cannot be done without booze. Booze cannot be drunk without repercussions. Thus, editing causes hangovers.
8. Commas.
Little bastards.
9. Gives me ideas.
It never fails that I’ll be editing something, working diligently and ignoring Twitter and Netflix like a good little writer, and a single line or event will send me into plotting something entirely not related to what I’m working on. That’s annoying.
10. It. Never. Ends.
No matter how much I edit, there is always something that could be better. Knowing this kind of sucks the motivation out of you, doesn’t it? Well, at least there’s booze.
2. I make a lot of mistakes.