Editing Draft 4 - Advice?

So I was wondering if anyone had any tips on motivating yourself to edit. This is the fourth time I've edited the same manuscript (off and on; and yes I'm a bit of a perfectionist) and I'm having a hard time sticking to any kind of time schedule for editing.

I have a little more than 100 pages left to edit and really, I've done most of the work already. I made notes on the printed manuscript as I compared the original with the feedback I got from a couple other people. All that's really left is making the changes electronically, but for some reason it's just kind of hard to get myself to sit down and do it. I mean, I want to do it but procrastinating it is just so darn easy.

Advice?

I'm probably the worst person to give advice, especially when it involves procrastinating. Also, considering I've only just started my first edit myself. But what I'm doing is putting myself in the least comfortable place to do it. Most of my writing during November was done in bed. Buuut on the 29th I had to do a mad dash to finish 9k, so I stayed up all night and sat in the kitchen at the table. Somehow, I managed to do it. And so far, the kitchen table is the only place I've gotten any of my rewrite done. (Also where I currently am -___-)

So maybe force yourself to sit in a place that's not very comfortable and promise yourself that once you finish X amount, then you can go do something fun/go be comfortable? But procrastinating is *extremely* easy haha. Story of my life. I hope that helped even just a little bit. Good luck!~ :)

I struggle with procrastination/motivation myself. Some things that might help.

Schedule that daily time and stick to it. Whether morning or night, it's much easier to keep focused when you have a habit.

No internet, no TV, no people talking/doing stuff within hearing range. Pull the plug, turn it off, find a place to shut it all out.

If you must listen to music, pick something without lyrics like trance techno or classical so that it's just background noise.

These things helped me, but starting out was still very hard. I would stare at the page for twenty minutes then throw up my hands in frustration. I was restless and not making any progress. I felt like I should get up and go do something else just so I wasn't wasting precious time. Fight that urge! Make yourself stay put and stare at that page. Make yourself keep refocusing on that next sentence, next paragraph etc. Once the mental habit is formed it gets easier.

But you have to want it. If you don't want it bad enough, it won't happen. Really that's what it comes down to regardless of method. Good luck to you.

What helps me most when trying to get things done is to make a to do list with goals listed in tiny increments and cross things off periodically.

If I think about the entire goal ("100 pages of a fourth draft!") the motivation to do it is so hard because 1. it feels like an overwhelming amount and 2. it's not a goal I can achieve in one sitting, so it's never like "sit down right now and do ___", leading to more procrastination.
If I think "I'm just going to sit down and edit this one page/paragraph/100 words" I'm like "that's easy, why not? I'll feel accomplished for a tiny amount of work." And then, of course, if I get on a roll, I'll end up doing more.
Basically, I find that breaking things into chunks is the way to go. I know that's basic but I hope it helps. :)

Also, I don't know what your scheduling attempts have been like, but having a steady, but small, goal for each day helps me. Like, "1 page every day." If I do more, great. If not, I did something without too much stress.

What I hate to do is clean house. My house is a sty. Here's how I force myself to get something done.

I set a kitchen timer for 15 minutes.

I know I can survive 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, I can stop.

If you do the same thing for editing, you will work your way through the manuscript a little bit at a time. You can always work past the beeping of your timer, but you don't ever have to. And you will accomplish stuff!

I'm wrapping up Draft 4 of my manuscript as well. The key for me is that I don't approach editing/rewriting in the same manner as the initial draft. I leave time in between rewrites so that the story goes "stale" in my mind and, as I'm reading my story during the edit or rewrite, I don't remember what comes next. In this way, the story stays fresh for me and I'm enjoying reading AS I edit. I also give myself a deadline for having it done. For example, this draft needs to be done by March so I can pitch it to agents and publishers at a local conference.

Really helps when I have a goal at the end instead of, "Sheesh, I have to rewrite this thing AGAIN!"

I set aside an hour every morning for writing and editing. That's all I do.

So I can write new stuff, I can edit old stuff, but that's it. Some days I'm super productive (I got 1,900 words in one day!), some days I'm pretty lazy. But...you know, it happens.

Another possibility is that you might want to take a break. If the story is feeling old/over done/ghastly/useless, it may be time to let it go and work on something else until your passion returns.

Last but not least, I can only do about two to three drafts on my own before inertia sets in. (This is even with break.) Usually at about that point, I go beta hunting. They'll usually figure out exactly what's wrong, allowing me to do a more thorough re-write than I could do on my own. (My most recent spotted some pacing problems with a novel I finished waaaay back in August.)

I'm on draft 14. Posting on how you have problems means you're procrastinating, which really means you need someone to tell you to bend over and kick your butt. The best type to do this is the Alpha. Find a good alpha who is passionate about your story and which terrible things will happen if you don't deliver the draft now.

Most authors say it takes 7 drafts to get halfway decent. That includes rewrites.

Did you get people to read over your previous drafts? Sometimes a critique also helps you to get motivated.

If none of those works, you might just need a shiny new project to move onto.

"...but for some reason it's just kind of hard to get myself to sit down and do it."

This is my number one problem with doing anything, ever. So far I have only found two systems that work for me.

One thing I find really helps is to get the time of day right when you know you are most likely to work, sit down a few hours earlier, and then procrastinate up to starting work. For me, that means sitting down early evening and starting at night. For practically any for of work the time I am most productive and focused is at night. So if there's something I need to do, I sit down at the computer at maybe 5pm. Then ~4 hours of procrastination later, I might get bored enough to feel ready to start. If I ever do start, I tend to get stuck in and stay up til 2am, easy. It's just getting started that takes the work.

Another thing I do is to get out *everything* I will need the day before. Papers, books, pens, whatever, and put them on my desk (on top of my keyboard by preference), and decide that when I sit down the next day, I WILL start. Just having them all there and knowing that everything I need will be ready when I sit down seems to take the load off starting a bit.

Idk if that will be helpful to you, but good luck anyway.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone!

I am late to the game, but I wanted to add one more thing to the excellent list you already have. One of the things I do in the real world is teach classes for kids who are studying for the SATs, and part of the course involves taking multiple practice tests to get them ready for it. These are miserable, boring, tweeze-out-your-eyelashes, four-hour exams, and they have to do five of them.

So one of the things we talk about is how it can be really important to choose a good place to take your practice test. For some students, it is HARD to do this god-awful thing at home, because home-space has all these conflicting vibes - it's where you sleep, where you goof off and have fun, where there's all these other people, pets, and every distraction under the sun. Those students tend to do better when they go set up camp in a neutral and at least somewhat sterile/academic place, like a library or an empty classroom at school.

So I guess what I'm saying is, if this particular part feels a lot more like work than the previous ones, it might could help to go find yourself a more work-y place to do it in. Someplace that will let you plug in your computer but that doesn't have free Internet access, for example - if it's a choice between 'edit your manuscript' or 'play another round of FreeCell', I warrant you will sooner or later choose option A!

WhatsForDinner wrote:
What I hate to do is clean house. My house is a sty. Here's how I force myself to get something done.

I set a kitchen timer for 15 minutes.

I know I can survive 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, I can stop.

If you do the same thing for editing, you will work your way through the manuscript a little bit at a time. You can always work past the beeping of your timer, but you don't ever have to. And you will accomplish stuff!

I do the same thing with writing--just 20 minutes, I can do that! And usually once I've been writing for 20 minutes I'm more "into the groove" and can keep going. The danger is allowing myself an internet break after just 20 minutes--not a good idea!

What about your book required four drafts?

Yes, some writers are 3-4 draft writers, some even more. But more often, writers are 2-3 draft writers. Generally, a first draft, a revision before submitting to an editor, and another revision based on the editors comments after you have a contract in your hand. Or, for self publishers, a first draft, followed by beta reads, then a revision, then an editor, then a final draft based on editorial comments. Every draft is time spent NOT writing new words on your next book. And every draft where you're not getting outside advice and comments is, unless you are a very experienced professional, as likely to reduce the quality of the book as it is to improve it. Be careful that you're not just spinning your wheels. ;)

Have you had someone read the book between each draft?

In other words, are you revising to "editorial direction", even if that's just comments from another writer or a couple of avid readers? Or are you revising blindly and *hoping* that you're making improvements on the book? It's very easy to revise out of a novel everything that makes the story special and interesting, leaving you with a very pretty but exceptionally bland tale that nobody is going to want to read. Be *cautious* about your revision. Your best, most inspired work is in your first draft, almost always! Change it only when you truly need to do so and only when you are very sure the changes will improve the story.

Every writer works differently, but as general advice, I would say - move the big rocks first.

In the overall scheme of things it is a complete waste of your time to spend any effort worrying about whether it should be "lie" or "lay" in scene 24, when the first time you look at your overall plot you see that scene 24 is simply a distraction from your overall story arc and needs to be cut.

i would say start with your plot line and make sure your scenes move from one to the next. fill any gaps, cut any that are dragging the plot/pacing down, move them around etc.

I have several semi finished novels, but I cannot edit them. I'm too close and sometimes miss pieces where *i* know they're going on, but they're not actually written in. I'm going to find an objective editing buddy for that.

My actual question is how? Do you print out your copy and take out the red pen of doom, or highlight in word processing programs, or...?
What seems to be the best method for butchering the monster to build a paragon?

Personally, when editing/rewriting, I break out the highlight and comment functions on my Word Processor. Printing 436 pages just costs too much for me to do.