Hello, writers! My name is Bianca and I've written three 300,000+ word books. The first was a sports-centric action-adventure book about a boy and his spaceship. The second was a science-fiction extravaganza about a boy and his three magical elements. The third was a action-adventure drama about a boy and his family. Okay, in actuality, these three books are not three books at all, but the first, second, and third drafts of the same story. "Editing" my own writing was/is a nightmare, because I would either be too hard on myself (i.e. overanalyzing the story arcs and nit-picking the dialogue) or not be hard enough on myself (i.e. making excuses for poor descriptions, which would basically consist of me shrugging and thinking, "readers are probably going to skip this part anyway"). After a while, my brain became so accustomed to seeing my words that the text became more than just black on white. It became correct. It became "perfect". Errors and typos were so hard to spot that they may as well had been absent, because in my eyes, all the words were there, all the meaning was there. It's the hardest thing to do. See past our own minds. When editing our own writing, it's like we have to forget everything we know about the story and the characters. We have to play the part of the reader. Sometimes even, we have to be our own collaborators. We have to make room in our minds for ideas that may take our stories in a different direction from what we originally planned. It took me for what seems like forever, but I've come to embrace change. Even though there were times when my first draft was "perfect", and times where my second draft was even more "perfect", I cannot fault myself for ever loving those stories when they were as far from perfect as any story could be. They were the beginning and the middle of my writing journey. So, in total, I've written one book. One book that I'm proud of and still working on. One that I hope to share with you one day.
Until next time...
love is a battlefield
writing is a journey
- Bianca