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Editing: Why I Want To Throw My WIP In The Fire
In the writing community there was a tweet going around this weekend about your least favorite part of the writing process, and I was interested in seeing how much it varied from person to person, and how much support I got in my answer. Writing is often isolating, so it was nice to see others have the same challenges.
My biggest writing challenge isn’t ideas, or dialogue, or world building. Honestly, it’s editing. I hate it with every fiber of my being. I don’t mind it so much here on Medium or in academic pursuits, while they are part of me they don’t feel as personal. In my fiction though, it is painful. I actively avoid it, so much so that I have three finished YA novel first drafts, sitting on my laptop, never to be touched. Editing feels like an impossible hike, re-writing feels like Mr. Everest in the dead of winter. They are both these mountains I have built up in my emotional brain, and I get anxious, I have all the self doubt, I freeze.
When I go back and start the editing process I feel like I everything I wrote is awful. I over scrutinize myself, compare myself to other authors in the same genres. I feel like everything I have spent months writing is crap and want to just throw it all in the fire, never to be seen again. I feel insecure, and unworthy of calling myself a writer let alone an author. All my self doubt comes…
