About four days after I typed the last words in draft 2 I decided to get my MS back out and give it a run through to edit for punctuation and grammar. At first it felt like an intimidating mountain to ascend but once I put myself in the mind space for it I was pleasantly surprised at how doable it was.
For me, the key is to take it in small chunks. A couple of times along my editing journey I have tried to push myself to look at more pages than what I really should have. Not only did this bog me down and wear my brain out, but I later caught myself having missed a couple of glaring errors. So, for me, I take it about five pages at a time and repeat the process a few times per day.
Everyone is different and some people definitely have more ability to focus for longer periods than I do.
As I have been editing, I did notice that I have experienced different phases, in relation to how I view my own writing abilities.
While editing;
pages 1-50: "Hmm. You know what? I'm not bad. Wow, I can't believe I wrote some of this. It's pretty good!
pages 51-75: "Okay, it's still decent but feels a little flat. Let's just punch it up a bit...and...we're good!"
pages 76-100: *sigh* "Alright, I really should have re-read some of this. HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO USE THE WORD 'AND', DUDE?!?"
pages 101-130: "Are you kidding me?!? A monkey could crap on a typewriter and make more sense than this garbled crap!!! Did a cat walk across the keyboard while you went to get a snack? Seriously, a 3rd grader could do better!" *throws Chromebook out the window.*
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