249 Quotes About Editing

I have a confession. I'm a little OCD when I post on social media – I tend to edit more than I should. But then I started thinking, maybe we should all edit a little more - our posts, our thoughts, our words.

Writing without revising is the literary equivalent of waltzing gaily out of the house in your underwear.

Only God gets it right the first time and only a slob says, "Oh well, let it go, that's what copyeditors are for.

I've found the best way to revise your own work is to pretend that somebody else wrote it and then to rip the living shit out of it.

Edit your manuscript until your fingers bleed and you have memorized every last word. Then, when you are certain you are on the verge of insanity...edit one more time!

I edit my own stories to death. They eventually run and hide from me.

I have always believed in the principle that immediate survival is more important than long-term survival.

How do you end a story that’s not yours? Add another sentence where there is a pause? Infiltrate the story with a comma when really there should have been a period? Punctuate with an exclamation point where a period would have sufficed? What if you kill something breathing and breathe life into something the author wanted to eliminate? How do you get inside the mind of a person who isn’t there? Fill the shoes of someone who will never again fill his own?

I'm writing a first draft and reminding myself that I'm simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.