My editing is going slower than I had hoped. I was striving to make it through my whole story in June so I could send it out to my first few beta readers early in July, but – go figure – I still find myself sitting and staring at the same paragraphs that I sat and stared at last month and the month before that.
In the most recent chapter of Author in Progress – the contributor said if you’re debating the merits of “it’s” vs. “it is” then you’re done. Stop torturing yourself. You’re no longer making your work better, just “differenter” – his word not mine.
Even though Matt and I spent ten minutes last night listing alternative ways to describe people “milling about,” I feel far from done. (“Milling about” somehow wound up in the middle of my story despite the fact I have never uttered that phrase aloud.)
Gathering, congregating, loitering, visiting….
I had a long string of adjectives standing in place in my writing (accounting for 6 of my 84,000ish words) where I was trying to describe myself as an eight year old – and my yearning for knowledge about – well, sex.
Bookish, nerdy, curious, studious, intellectual, resourceful…..
Finally – out of the blue – the word inquisitive popped into my muddled brain. 
Perfect!
I wish I could say I’m down to only pitting one word choice against another, but I still have some more in-depth, sentence-long, sometimes paragraph-long strings of words to flesh out.
There is a great sense of satisfaction when I finally arrive at the right word or phrase, though. To celebrate such victories, I allow myself to walk around the house and stretch my aching muscles.
Arms, back, shoulders, neck….
I printed out my story last weekend and I’ve been highlighting the edge of the pages once they’re done – whatever done means.
Complete, completed, finished…
Current Word Count: 84,058
Come on already. I am not a big reader but am anxious to read this one!
I would have been stymied at word count…forget editing.