I’ve reached a minor break in my story. The next part is going to be really fun to write, but my first part is so mixed up that I’ve decided to edit it first. So I’ve sent the first six chapters to my very honest but very kind critiquer – my husband. 
I love editing. Something about honing the words, the characters, and the story is oh-so-satisfying to my OCDness. 
I think I’ve worked out a good system for editing (for me, anyway). Instead of just working on one file, whenever I start a new round of editing I copy the file into a new one and number it. That way if I decide I like the way something sounded in an earlier edit, I can just go back and copy/paste. This is probably old hat to a lot of folks, but I just had the brilliant discovery in the past couple weeks. *blush* My word count is also going down, from 17,523 to 16,242 so far, and I’ve only gone through the first two chapters. It makes me wince a little, but I think the project is really benefiting from the shave. Still, this is a very light edit, not the ruthless chopping I’ll do when the entire thing is finished.
Editing is always good for a few laughs too, of course. Like when I discovered I had my MC draining a glass of milk at one point, then a of couple pages later emptying the same glass. Haha. 
Le husband caught one too – I mentioned that the pantry and cabinets in the house are bare of food, yet the MC is washing breakfast dishes. Doh! These are always facepalm moments, but they make me laugh.
Then there are the times I bang my head on the desk and wonder if I’ll ever break some old habits. Like constantly repeating words, sometimes as often as in the same sentence. Or writing things like, “Suddenly taken by impulse.” Um.
So how do you edit? A lot of people will disagree with my decision to start editing partway through a novel project, especially since my one goal with this project is just to finish a book-length work. But, it’s working for me. The discrepancies and errors in the first part were bothering me and hindering my continued writing. I have to go back and untangle the mess before I can go on. What works for you?
