5 Stages of Editing

I published this on another blog, but thought you guys would get a kick out of it too. Maybe some of you can relate. If not, you're lucky.

Stage 1 ) Anticipation - “I can barely wait to see what my editor thought about that manuscript! It’ll really be great to get back to work on it and move this project along. YAAAYYYY!!!”

Stage 2 ) Denial - “What are all these marks doing on my manuscript? I guess the editor needs to earn their pay somehow, but it should make them happy if I work in a few of their
suggestions.”

Stage 3 ) Anger - “What the HELL?? Whoever scribbled all over my goddamn work must be ON SOMETHING!! What is this GARBAGE? If THEY’RE so smart, why don’t
THEY WRITE THE F’ING THING???”

Stage 4 ) Depression - “Oh my God. These suggestions are right. They’re all right, which means I was all wrong. This editor was right all over the place and I just suck! Why am I doing
this? How do I get paid for this? I suck!”

Stage 5 ) Acceptance - “You know what? Most of these suggestions are good, so I’ll use them. The ones that aren’t so great, I’ll just STET and move on. His is why there are buildings full of editors in New York. I come up with my part, they do theirs and a book is born. What was I going on about before? Jeez! I sure won’t go through all this next time.”

Yeah, right

---Although the speed of going through these stages might have varied from book to book, I still went through them while writing every book that's on this site and plenty that aren't. Unfortunately, my wife has to go through this too, but it's more entertaining for her. You know, like watching reruns.