ADVICE – The Three Stages of Editing

In my ADVICE – How to Become a Better Writer blog post, I initially had a spelling error in the title.  It was just a slightly more public reminder of my continuing struggles with editing.

Long ago, my wife noted my struggles and merciful took upon herself the task of being my editor.  It is not an easy task.  She surely did not realize what she was getting into when she agreed.  In bewilderment, she regularly calls me over to read a sentence I have written.  I will read out loud a sentence of pure literature only to have her point out that the words I spoke were not the words I had written.  My brain simply compensates, substituting what I intended to write, despite what my fingers might actually type.  If the world could only hear what things sound like in my head, I would win a Pulitzer.

Given my propensity for writing errors, my wife is not very sympathetic when I embarrass myself by going rogue and publishing a blog prior to her editing.

That is what happened with “ADVICE – How to Become a Better Writer”.  It was short, I reasoned, ‘How could I messed that up?’  Evidently, I don’t even require a full sentence to make an editing mistake.  I can do it in a title.

My wife and son are out-of-town at a NCFCA speech and debate tournament so I am without my beloved editor.  I could refrain from publishing anything until she returns but what is the fun in that?  Therefore, I apologize in advance because it is going to be a rough couple days.  I did some research in anticipation of my impending difficulties and went looking for some advice on how to improve my editing.

I thought I would pass along some of the good advice I found from The Three Stages of Editing .  We will see how it works over the next couple days…starting now.

Related articles

• Editing in 10 Steps
• Learning To Write Rough