The inspiration of the first draft of your novel (memoir, how-to) has carried you relentlessly through a winter of storms and rushed you insensate past a glorious spring. Midsummer is waning and you’ve been so engrossed, there’s not a solitary geranium in your window box. Now you’re done and ready to publish. After a night of gentle rain, the treacly smell of autumn greets you as you step into the first morning you’ve visited willingly in months.
You return home refreshed, with an implacable clarity of mind that reminds you this rough hewn log needs to be edited into an exquisitely carved column.
You will hate your opening paragraphs, perhaps the entire first chapter. Your inner terrorist is on the loose, chisel in hand. Keep it focused on the page. If it turns into the inner critic, whack it with the honed edge of your machete. Your lungs are refreshed and your mind is objective, ready for any obstacle suppressing the radiance of truth. Your red pen (or cursor) knows what must go, what is misworded, what distracts from the story (despite your intoxication with the eloquence of the whole chapter – the one which convinces your mother that you are finally A WRITER!
SuperSelf-Editor will conquer! But s/he is a 21st century hero/ine – a committed ecologist. No electronic landfill in this New Earth! With laser beam steady, you mark the boundary of what must go – and you CUT!
Your heart is screaming, NO! Bring it back. Your grief leads to fierceness. With your replicator you create a new document. Onto its pristine surface you PASTE! What smelled like compost in the plot of your novel is night blooming jasmine with a hint of wild rose in its own garden. Ahhh – the short story is born.
But it must spend time in the nursery for now while you are committed to a novel that is lean, riveting – that carries your reader into empathy, ecstasy, and acts that will save the world from implosion and stupidity.
Carry on with your self-editing, finding general guidance in Making Your Writing Rejection-Proof and specific tips in Savvy Self-Editing by Tony Jaymes Wayman.
If you find yourself unable to untangle the opening, you’re not alone – in fact you’re in the morass with almost every writer I work with. Don’t fret about it now. Proceed with the rest of your manuscript. You need to know how to the extract the glory of the ending before you can make the opening work. And I’ll devote my next posting entirely to the subject of opening chapters. So proceed with your current assignment and
Till next time, delight in the process.
Download PDF here: No Words Are Wasted: Recyle Your Writing As You Edit