All I want for Christmas... Friday, December 22, 2006

Is easy edits...

I know, many of you are laughing, your tummies jiggling, as it's the season for it. But it's a personal pride issue for me. I HAVE to have the ABSOLUTE BEST work I can produce on that page before anyone will see it. Ask my CP's, they know I'm dead serious about this.

That usually means rereading a piece no less than a dozen or two dozen times to find dropped words, passive voice, and other evils that befall us as writers.

Why should the editor be responsible for cleaning up my mess? If I have to write something which requires THAT much work, then it shouldn't be going to a publisher. Any kind of publisher. I know some people believe that an editor is there to "cure all the errors" but honestly, that is the writer's job, and I take pride in it. I love it when I get work back with next to nothing done to it. That means my writing is growing, I'm learning the right way to WRITE, not just throw words on a page and let someone else fix the jumble into coherency.

So here's what I'm wondering as we go into the Christmas countdown -- How much is good enough for you to submit your work? Do you reread until your eyeballs threaten mutiny? I'm a closet perfectionist when it comes to this point, so I'm really curious if my standards are just personal, or if others have CP's (Critique Partners) or beta readers to go over their work?