Honestly...help with editing!

[MommyHawk]

there has to be a better way!...well, writing the novel perfectly the first go around, yeah...but, honestly, is there ANY way to make this better? I wrote my novel in less than a year - my goal - but from the looks of it, I'll NEVER finish editing...I'm on my third round of edits - all the way through - and now the story is starting to not only drain me, but starting to loose it's edge with me...I don't see it as interesting anymore, I don't care anymore, I'd rather waste away my time blogging and doing nothing when I DO have the time to edit...

anyone out there actually get through and have some ideas/tips on how to make this work better? should I just give up? have someone else edit it? have someone else read it (shudder) and then fix what they hated?...

how much time a day do you devote to editing? what do you do? Line by line? chapter by chapter? or just go through it start to finish and then start it over again? ...

help!...

[Aufilia]

What's been driving your editing rounds? Have you shown the drafts to anyone else or asked for critique, or are you just plowing through on your own?

I think at a certain point it's time to step away from a project and move on. I'm on draft 3 of the first half of my novel and draft 2 of the second half, and I plan to finish this round of revisions, show the whole novel to a couple people, make one last revision pass and then STOP messing with it until/unless I get an agent or editor who requests something in particular. I'm going to start writing another novel while I send this one out to agents.

[midnightwriter]

Here's my story: I finished my many times revised novel in January. Or was it December? I put it away; then got more feedback on it from a friend, and started re-reading just now. Wow! Having it put away was fantastic. I thought I'd done this before, but apparently, no. I used to think I was re-reading it, but in reality I was remembering it. It is only now that I'm reading it for real. What a difference. First of all, I'm pretty impressed. Which I hope is a good sign . But I also found some pages which are really bad, and am rewriting them, as well as a bunch of logical inconsistencies--with so many readers, I thought I won't see any of them anymore.

The biggest one so far--husband and wife feed their toddler, go upstairs and make love. Note to self--oops, where's that toddler? Have they even closed the door?

True, I'm tired of it. But I am also excited and want to finish for real. This time I'm really, really close. And those last 5 lb take the longest

You can do it. I really think the trick is to put it aside and start a new novel. Only then you will gain the distance needed. I thought I had the distance, but obviously I didn't.

[marsupial*mama]

Find a writing group/mentor

I have a memoir that I've been writing for three years but only this past twelve months has it received any regular editing attention. I attended an editing for publishing workshop at my local writers' centre and from there about half the class formed a writing group. For the past 12 months we've been meeting monthly and, of course, I must have something prepared to show everyone each and every month. So my progress has been steady, about five chapters a month (and several re-writes) with feedback from five wonderful people on what works, what doesn't, how to punctuate that complicated sentence and what to cut and what to elaborate on. I love what I'm writing (mostly) but I LOVE the process of editing with my writing group. I always come away inspired and motivated.