Today is haircut day for the whole family. We venture onto
the nearby IUP campus, park our car in the lot by the Hadley Union Building,
and roll into the Hair Hub. In my humble opinion, it’s the best place to
go in Indiana, PA for a haircut. After two hours of work by their amazing
stylists, my eyebrows are shaped, my hair is springy, and all the dead, split
ends that weigh my ‘do down decorate the floor in a choppy brown circle around
my feet. The transformation is a lot like editing my WIP.
I write in basically three large chunks relevant to my
story’s structure: the introduction, the struggle—where the meat and problems
happen, and the resolution. After each section, I edit.
I clip away all the dead weight, the confusion, the
scraggily paragraphs that don’t flow with the rest of the story, and I sweep
all my cut bits onto a page labeled: Discard File for [insert title].
Then I rip and pluck stray words or sentences from the manuscript until the
remaining chapters are shaped and springy, ready for a critique. Once the
sections grow into a finished book, I snip away again until I’m comfortable with
the final product.
I’d love to say I’m satisfied after a few hours of editing,
but that would be a lie. Sadly, my results aren’t as immediate as my
hairdresser’s are. Sometimes it takes a week or two before I’m happy, and
sometimes, it takes even longer. The curse of a perfectionist!
To me, writing is like growing my hair; it just happens. The
real skill and work lie in the editing. Fingers crossed that mine’s as sharp as
the Hair Hub’s scissors.
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