The Undiscovered Country

The good old days - still good.

Gone are the days when an author built up calluses on the fingers from pounding on a stiff, loud typewriter, having to replace the tape and tearing apart paper with those sandpaper like erasers (you remember those, the ones that were light blue, and had a small brush on the end).

Now most of us type everything on a little screen. If we need to erase something, there's always the delete key. The keyboard is so light, we only have to worry about carpal tunnel syndrome or some other repetitive disorder.

When we need to rewrite something, all we have to do is open up the original document and cut, paste, move, remove, add and subtract.

Though it may kill our eyesight, we're at least saving a few trees.

However, I'm more old-school when it comes to editing, especially if it's a major edit.

I start from scratch, and type every word of my manuscript over again. For some reason, I see it more fresh that way, and I see things I would otherwise miss if I merely skimmed through my manuscript to address the problems I'm aware of.

One downside to that is the likelihood of additional misspellings and grammar errors. I'll need at least two people read through it (my husband, poor guy who's now on his second read, I will ask for a third) before I submit to an agent/publisher.

To keep ahead of my mid-August deadline, I need to write 11 pages tonight. Good thing I'm a fast typer, and can stay up until 11:30 without morning difficulties tomorrow. I should get it done.

Question for you: What is your process of rewriting?