Editing your own work.

I’ve spent the last week editing “Sovereign Nation”, a novel I wrote a while back but lost a bit of faith in when it was rejected by everyone I sent it to.  Re-reading it I think it isn’t all that bad, there are certainly worse published novels out there, and I will definitely publish it through the Amazon Kindle Store – but it has made me think about the process of editing your own work.

Having put this novel aside for a while before editing I have found things in it I don’t remember writing, a very odd feeling. As I go through I am adding words here and there, removing words here and there, rephrasing everything from a few words to whole paragraphs but it is largely staying as it is.

So, the question arises: can I really edit my own work?  I suspect another editor would want wholesale changes and rewrites but I don’t – is that because I am too close to it and thus unable to critically judge it?  Is it just a near perfect novel? Ok, now I am just kidding myself.

I’ll be interested to see what I think of the ending, always the most difficult bit of a story I find. Beginnings are tough but endings are tougher.

I am also finding myself getting into the characters again, thinking about other stories I could do with them. Do I carry on with them, come up with more adventures for the intrepid couple? Maybe, it is a lot to think about.