What Happens When Writers Edit Their Own Work
We can’t distinguish the good from the bad
Every writer knows that editing is key to making good work great. But editing is often a process we minimize because:
- It takes time
- We just want to publish and move on to the next piece
- Who wants to spend hours finding and correcting their own mistakes?
Through the years, I’ve done my share of editing both my work and the work of others and I find that I often mark up other people’s work way more than I do my own. It’s not because my writing doesn’t require a lot of editing but because writers can’t and shouldn’t edit their own work.
Our ego can’t handle the criticism
There are some writers who can put their egos aside and mercilessly edit their own work. They cut, add, or change entire paragraphs or arguments.
But most writers won’t.
Writers are a complicated bunch. We are our own biggest critics yet we are also completely head over heels in love with ourselves and our work (or maybe that’s true of the human race in general).
Even in our humblest moments, we like to believe that everything we put out there is perfect or near-perfect so when we’re editing our own work, we tend to overlook the glaring issues and focus on the small ones like minor spelling errors and even those will get missed from time to time.
Writing is a personal experience. We are literally putting our thoughts down on paper for the world to read. And it’s demoralizing when you look back and realize that your thoughts are nonsensical and don’t deserve to see the light of day.
But writing isn’t about stroking our ego. If anything, writing will take our ego down a notch and editing our work might just destroy it altogether. But that’s what’s great about editing. It humbles us but can also lift us back up because when we edit, we become better writers.
The ego knows that not everything we write is a work of art, it’s just afraid to admit it.
As quickly as editing can tear us down, it can build us back up again because as soon as we delete full paragraphs, new ideas will pop into our heads, better and more well-constructed ideas.
To Be A Good Writer You Have To Put Your Ego Aside
Are you writing for the right reasons?
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It’s hard to be objective when it’s your creation
It’s hard to review your own writing from an outsider’s perspective when you’re not an outsider to your own work.
We become too close to our work. After all, it’s our heart, soul, and mind on that tiny white screen.
There are times when our work is exceptional and there are times when our work just plain sucks. The problem is that, as the creator, we can’t always tell the difference and we can’t see our creation for what it really is whether that be ugly, beautiful, great, or bad. We want it all to be great and when we want our work to be beautiful so badly, it’s hard to see the not so great or downright ugly parts about it.
We only see our work for its potential not for what it truly is
Our minds constantly wander off into the future rather than staying focused on the present. We do the same thing with our writing.
As Jeff Goins says, “as you compose and craft, like any good parent does with a child, you don’t see your work for what it is. You see it for its potential, for what you imagine it to be.”
We write with the future in mind.
We dream about having a viral article or the potential success that comes with writing a bestseller. We dream about what our work could become. And when the mind wanders so far into the future, it can be difficult to bring it back to the present.
But the present is where your work is.
Like how I’m writing this piece right now.
I don’t know how this piece will do once I hit publish. The only thing I can do is to make this piece as great as I possibly can based on the talent and experience I have right now.
Editing our own work is like editing our life
Editing our own work is very much a reflection of life itself. We are often not the best editors of our own lives. We have too much ego and invested too much time in our careers, relationships, passions.
For the most part, we need someone else to look at our lives and give us some perspective and a reality check. If we look ourselves in the mirror, we rarely can separate the good from the bad.
This is the same for our writing.
We need an outsider’s perspective and input to help us learn and grow and point out our mistakes. But if we don’t have that person or persons in our lives, then we must do our own editing no matter how hard it is. It’s the only way we’ll be able to learn and grow from our mistakes and typos even if we are our own worst editors.