Editing

I am going through the process of editing the manuscript that I generated in Nanowrimo 2013.

I have never much enjoyed editing.  I'm not really sure why - for that matter, I have never really wanted to re-read anything I have written after I am done with it.  In fact, it is almost to the point of being something of a phobia with me.

Why is this?  I'm not really sure.  Someone who feels that I suffer from pride might say that I am too proud to consider the fact that I would not question that I could make a mistake.  Someone who feels I suffer from insecurity might say that I have no confidence in what I wrote.  Someone who feels I am lazy might say that I just don't want to finish the job.  Someone who feels I am too much of a perfectionist might say I avoid it to avoid confronting the fact that I am not perfect.

My thought?  A combination I believe:  on the one hand the very simple belief the editing is not part of the creative process, not part of the "fun".  Writing is the making of someone from other things - or in the case of writing, making something from nothing but your mind.  Editing, I perceive, is not "fun":  it is the crawling through of each individual character, word and phrase looking not only for direct error but an indirect phrasing or something that could be improved.

The other fact is, I believe, my underlying distrust of criticism.

I have trouble with criticism (there, I've said it).  What is new, you might ask - it is not as if anyone really gets excited to receive it.  True enough I suppose.  Still, I have always had an issue with criticism, even if it is offered in a professional manner, even if it is offered for things that are not personal.  Why is this?  A combination at play again, I suppose:  on the one hand a sense that everything for me is personal, that everything I do (even if it is not personal) is an extension of myself.  On the other, a deep and abiding sense - fear, even - of how criticism has been used in the past, as tool not to correct and improve but to destroy.

Common enough in everyone's lives I suppose - we have all been the victim of criticism meant to do something other than improve.  But I know few cases where the individual themselves is concerned that their own self-criticism is designed to destroy themselves.

I think like anything else editing is a process - not only in learning to do it, but in learning that it is not the fearsome thing you perceive it to be, and that it is possible to trust even yourself to deliver criticism which is of use rather than destructive.

I do not know that I will ever come fully to terms with editing - as I said, it is not the most entertaining part of the process.  But perhaps I can at least come to a sense that it is a valuable one - and one that perhaps I trust myself to do without tearing myself down too much.