The Joys of Editing

So, I’m trying to get a short story book out.

This isn’t a new project; I’ve been planning on doing this for over a year now and is part of the reason why my articles are so spaced out. Most of the stories are completed, with a few exceptions, and some of them have been published before. The only reason why it’s been taking so long, outside of me balancing my time with work and this blog, is that I’m currently on the most annoying part of the writing process: editing.

I know I’m not the only writer whose soul dies a little when they get to the editing phase. It’s tedious, time consuming, and so frustrating that many authors opt to pay someone else to do it for them. I, unfortunately, can’t afford a professional editor, so I have to do it all myself. The good news is that I’ve been writing for over a decade and have had to edit my own work many times before.

The bad news is that no matter how good I get or how long I’ve been doing this, it’s still a pain in the ass.

The editing process is a delightful way of discovering just how many stupid mistakes you make on a regular basis. For example, I can’t tell you how many times I used “son” when I meant “sun” or how I used…