Today I had the privelage of glancing over my second novel, Faceless, which is heading towards its second draft. I’ve had a teacher look at it, and she is still currently looking at it, but I’ve realized something now that I’ve begun to look it over myself.

My writing sucks.

No, seriously. You don’t realize how bad it is until you’re the one sitting there reading it. Put it down for a few months, and you forget what your story was about. I found myself curious as to what was coming next in my own story. I didn’t remember writing most of what was on the page, and a good amount of it wasn’t too legible. Grammatically, many things are a mess, there are typos out the wazzoo, and several contradictions. But what does this teach people about writing? Namely that it’s a process which takes more patience than most have. I actually find it good that I’ve waited so long to sit down and read my own work. After two pages, I thought I’d had enough.

If you’re writing some sort of novel or short story, this is a strategy you can use to your advantage. Don’t finish the story and scramble into editing it unless you’ve pinpointed what need be done while writing (which is not the best practice either - it’ll slow your progress down a lot, making it harder to get to the ending of your story). Instead, finish it, then let it simmer for a month, lying around wherever you keep manuscripts that don’t matter. Forget all about this: This story won’t see the light of day for a while.

Pick it up after that month or two and read it. The story, you’ll realize, is suddenly fresh in your mind, ridden of all the foolish and extraneous ideas you had when you started the project. As you read, you’ll start to recall some of the vision that you had while writing, but it won’t be nearly as clear as it was when you wrote it. This is, as a matter of fact, ideal if you want people to read your work. Sitting down not knowing much about your own story puts you closer to the average reader. You’ll find phrases that don’t make sense faster than you would if you had tried to edit it just after finishing, because you won’t remember writing it as much. Some sentences will make you go, “What kind of idiot wrote that?” and “How could I have possibly overlooked this major plot contradiction?” Suddenly, the red pen flies down and you can’t stop correcting yourself.

That being said, to the people who read Faceless, any part of it, I don’t know how you could stand it. This writing is rubbish! I’ll be slamming my Space Pen down hard on the paper as I meticulously edit the grammar, style, and overall presentation of a to-be second draft of a novel. (Roll over the “Space Pen” link for an extra tidbit, by the way.)