Your Creative Process, a series of posts, began last Wednesday at http://www.RobynLaRue.com. Overview is here and Part One is here.
I’m on deadline for edits (due March 31). Line edits are not my favorite, and this set is more than punctuation (my line editor is a patient woman, lol) Above is a comment on my state of mine. Below are the images hanging above my monitor to inspire me through the last five days until deadline.
The Sarcastic Muse 
I love the concept of the story. So, I love the rough draft. Words flying everywhere. All of them are certainly bad. I loathe the rough draft because it isn’t perfect. My ideas and feelings aren’t expressed properly, but I can’t let that slow me down. I must get the story down.
I love editing. It makes my less than perfect words better. I fill in gaps and smooth over scenes. I cut out the junk. I get frustrated with editing because again I’m faced with not getting the right words or sequence of events on this story that I adore. Everything seems to fall short.
I love and loathe writing and editing. I always love the story.
I do like the rough draft and the first editing sweeps. And the polish stage is fun, too. 🙂 I think you’re right, it’s mostly trying to find the right words to convey what I mean.
I’m not a fan of editing. I cried buckets of tears when my agent sent back her editorial letter(s), but the process taught me 2 important things. 1) what I was willing/unwilling to change about my story, 2) the Nike slogan to get through the process – JUST DO IT. Good luck on your edits, Robyn!
My tactic for disagreements about punctuation/grammar is to reword the sentence, lol. I don’t think i’ve lost any voice, but we sure have worked to clarify in spots. 🙂
I’m all about new words on the page. I don’t like the editing process, but it’s probably more about self doubt than anything else.
There’s that, too. 🙂 Definitely a factor.
Great post, Robyn. My favorite image is the “Writing is rewriting…”. I listened to an audio clip of Joyce Carol Oates this morning where she said she usually rewrites her novels. One of her latest, The Accursed, took her about 30 years and 3 rewrites to complete.
Wow. Well, considering how old this novel is, I can see that, but I’m the one that set it aside. 😦