Editing.

I don't know how to start this one.  A lot of things float through my mind, when trying to think about an opening line. The opening line is *IT,* you know. What sets the pace for whatever comes out of the writer's head and blurts it out onto the paper, screen, etch-a-sketch, whatever the hell the writer is using to write what you're reading. It's that opening line that makes or breaks a story, an essay, a blog, a speech... If you can't get past that opening line, the writer is fucked. Because nothing can come after too epic or too fail, just silence. Or awkward stammering. Oddly enough, sometimes both. 


And then there's the reader to worry about! If the writer can't come up with a decent start, how the hell is the middle and end going to be? 


So, we've gotten through the first line. Now, on to the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and no, we're not going to count every line in the story, essay, speech, blog, etc., but you get the point. It's all stepping stones.


So after you've written all you can, you finally feel good about what you've done, your next job is:

Destroying It.

Yeah, you read me.
The next part of nurturing your work is Editing. Basically what you do is take your masterpiece, this work of something that you have slaved over. Now throw it in a cave with some TNT and a match.


You will slave over this part, even more so than you did with the Opening Line, the middle, and the end.
You will hate what you have written, never want to see it ever ever again. You will not want others to see it. It becomes evil. You won't be able to sleep. IT is hiding under your bed, waiting for you to have to go to the bathroom, where it will eat you alive.


Editing. God, I have always hated it. Because when reading something over and over and over, searching for mistakes, you find them. By the third read-through, you can't help but think, "Dear God! Who wrote this? A third grader?" 


And that's just the grammar and spelling.


Now, you've found a passage that just doesn't sound right. The words stumble across the page drunkenly, destroying any grip you had on the reader. So you try to fix it. You get it into some semblance of order, gave it some coffee and a cold shower, you might say. But something still isn't right about that passage. So you try again. Fuck. Now you've both gone to a bar and ordered not a few rounds of tequila. You decide to drop it, leave it alone, and move on, highlighting it so that later, you can go find it after your soul has been devoured by the next paragraph.


This process repeats itself several times. And no matter how many times you go through it, after it's published, passed out, or just read by a close friend, you will find more you hate about it. But now, SOMEONE ELSE has read this piece of shit you wish had never, ever, gone from your head down through your fingertips, and on to whatever-the-hell you're using to write IT on. But don't worry. They'll pat you on the back, congratulate you on it, and forget about it. Maybe.


But now, the evil thing is in the hands of OTHERS, and you're never going to get it back. You can never unsee something, you know. So you give up the struggle, accept it's over. You did it!
But then something starts creeping up from the back of your head. Oh no! Not ANOTHER ONE!!!



Writer's note:This is an "essay" in response to a friend *coughXaelcough* encouraging me to edit one of my "stories." I'm sure he'll never read this, as I won't encourage him, and he's not interested in stalking me. I hope. :P In fact, I wouldn't mind if this got lost in the blogosphere, never to be read again...
And NO I did NOT edit this! Somewhere in there, I was going to mention that round after round of editing, you'll wish you had just left the damn thing in it's raw form, but I don't want to read what I have written, so I'll just leave that bit here, mmkay?