The Pain of Editing

My God. 

As I go through my main-book-squeeze (RTS), I genuinely believe I have written better and more eloquently than I actually have. I imagine how the movie version goes in my head, and then I'm shocked and disappointed as I realize how very different the MS is:
-Why is that comma there?
-WHO thought the run-on sentence was a good idea?
-Why did I write "just" four times in that paragraph?
-Why did you write a scene of bright flowers when in the story it's winter? Idiot. (Yes, is in this sentence I'm yelling at myself in second person.)

It's a series of face palms and frustration as I sit and wonder, "If the comma doesn't work there, where on EARTH should it go? That sentence can't not HAVE a comma!"
And then, I realize my double entendre and my forehead hits my keys. I shut down the document and run to the comfort and safety of Twitter.

But that's not the best solution, is it? The best solution is sucking it up. Pulling yourself together. Being brave enough to acknowledge your own mistakes and research how to fix them. That's the key: Learning from your mistakes.
And reading. Reading is everything. Reading other authors and noticing their subtle cadences. The feelings they have inflicted on you as you are torn apart by tragedies. The excitement and anxiety of blood-pumping thrillers. How they bring out your laughter through ridiculous, silly or moronic characters. The eagerness felt by that final sentence of the chapter that forces you to read on. Finding the emotions that YOU want to instill in the reader. How do you want them to feel? How was it edited to inflict that emotion? 

Writing to me is weaving emotions. I want to envision the beautiful places in my head. I want to feel what the character feels through the catching of their breath, their heart pounding in the chest. The fear and panic found in dark silence.

Editing, on the other hand, is anti-emotion. It's the cold, calculating,"Dangling participle" and "Comma Splice." It's 'their, there, they're'. It's the frustrating past and present tense that somehow magically switches back and forth, alternating each paragraph . . . Or maybe, that last part is just me. Every painful piece of the editing process falls back on grammar, but that's what editors are for, right? Right?

Now stop distracting me. I need to stop blogging and get back to editing this beast before my editor has a conniption fit on me. #WhatAreDeadlines ?

All my love,
L.B.