The Arduous Task of Editing Your Own Writing

Going through the manuscript for what seems like the thousandth time

Many years ago when I was in my twenties and wanted to be a writer, my mom took me to see the late and great Anthony Winkler who was giving a talk on writing. I remember he said editing your own work was like eating your own vomit. A woman in the audience gasped in revulsion. (It is a disgusting visual). I remember thinking, ‘I get it, but I just want to be like you, in your position, editing my manuscript.’

Many years later, I am finally in that position, and I know what it feels like to read my manuscript for what seems like the thousandth time. It’s such a tortuous experience that I’ll find every excuse consciously and subconsciously to avoid it.

I”ve been working on this manuscript for about ten years (even admitting this is embarrassing ) and it’s gone through so many different versions as I’ve tried to make it the best book it can be. Now, I’m paragraphs away from finishing but it still requires a final read-through to correct typos, and those annoying mistakes that make an author/publisher lose credibility, like naming different characters the same name, starting out and ending with different information for a character, which can happen if a lot of time passes between the writing. In this book though, the final six stories are linked so the characters weave in and out of each other’s stories and this is no mistake.

Then there is the self doubt where I ask myself if I should publish certain stories, especially those where I use the first person. Will people think I’m the classist old woman in story number 1 or the sexually adventurous and dysfunctional woman in story number 3? Will people realize that my characters are not me, yet they are a part of me and what I observe of the world and imagine (and also what I hear)?

When I first started writing in Kingston, Jamaica, and had a few stories published in the newspaper, my father’s friends thought I was really the drug mule writing from jail, caught with cocaine in a certain body cavity. Another person thought my mother had committed suicide and came to offer condolences. Someone else called me and cussed me off thinking I was having an affair with her husband. My mentor the late and great Wayne Brown said I should take it as a compliment. It means the story and the character ring true. That’s what I’ve tried to do with these characters. I hope they are authentic and real in their dysfunction. They are real to me and I’ve tried to make them unforgettable.

I’m excited about this book of twelve short stories. I’ve found a small publisher who is willing to publish this collection. You’d think I would just get the job done. But Anthony Winkler is right. This last bit of final editing is tough, arduous and requires discipline, willpower and focus. It’s like I’ve been running a marathon. I can see the finish line. I’m almost there, and the crowd (my friends and family) are shouting for me to keep going. I’m trying, but for some reason, my legs are heavy as steel and I slow down to check my phone for new messages that aren’t even there. I try to focus on the marathon. I’m gasping and sweating.

‘C’mon,’ shout the crowd. ‘Just do it already.’

‘Just two more weeks,’ I gasp. ‘I’ll do it. I just need two more weeks.’