I RATHER LIKE SELF-EDITING

I did a lot of editing today. I finished about half of my manuscript, but I already think that I should make more changes. I guess that is the thing about editing. You never feel truly satisfied with your own work. You always think ''Hey, I can make this even better''.

But I don't think I should change too much in my manuscript. Only the spelling errors and wrong use of commas, which I found out there were plenty of. The reason for that is that I liked the first draft and all I had to do was add a bit more meat to the skeleton and then I ended up rewriting the whole damn thing and now I am changing everything back to almost the exact same style as the first draft.

I also picked up the words I tend to use too much. Then, suddenly, But and Because. I used these words so much that I annoyed myself reading through it. Not to mention that for some strange reason during the second draft, I put commas everywhere accept where they needed to be. The most daunting task was reading through the whole manuscript to remove them.

Another thing that is difficult for me is removing scenes or sentences. I feel as if I am gutting my manuscript. Deep down I know that those words don't fit, but I want them there anyway. However, I took a deep breath and made the necessary cuts.

I rather like self-editing. The only problem is that it is very exhausting, but what makes it easier is taking a lot of breaks, regularly. I feel stupid for thinking that I needed someone else to do this for me.