Quoth

The very wise and lovely Julie Cohen calls the self-doubt stage of writing a book 'the crows of doubt'. You know, the bit where you're convinced the book you're writing is terrible, that the characters are one-dimensional and unsympathetic, that your plot is nonsensical and has more holes in it than Blackburn, Lancashire, that none of your jokes are funny and that your mystery plot isn't mysterious.

I rarely feel like this while actually writing.

I feel like this whenever I have to revise a book.

This is Quoth, the raven. All right, so I don't have a soft toy crow.

I know a first draft is generally terrible. I don't mind that. I can go back and fix problems, rewrite the bad stuff, cut the really bad stuff, and generally make the book something I'm not ashamed to put my name to. But all of this is before anyone else has seen the book.

An editor's job is to make the book better. Put another way, her job is to find all the flaws in the book. Put another way, her job is to find all the many, many ways in which your book sucks, and point them out to you.

Put another way: her job is to make you wish you'd decided to clean toilets for a living, instead of writing.

This is the stage I'm at now. Actually this is the stage I was at in September, but my book is so bad we're on the fifth round of revisions, and my conclusions are thus:

• I'm not funny.
• My characters are inconsistent.
• My mystery plot could be solved in five minutes, if only the right person asked the right question on page forty.
• I'm really not funny.
• Any lines I believe to be lovely, concise, beautiful in their simplicity, aren't the poetry I believe them to be, but are in dire need of more exposition before they can make sense.
• I don't know anything about automatic cars, or house construction, or MI5.
• I'm going to offend people who like The X Factor.
• I'm really, really not funny.

The thing about edits is that I know the editor doesn't hate me, or my book, and wants to make it all better...so I ought to listen. But I also know whose name is going on the front of the book, and even though I'd really like it to be Alan Smithee at this point, I know it's going to be mine. There are lines in some of my books that the editor put in despite my protests, just to explain something. And they make me cringe, because they're not lines that I wrote and they're not lines I like. But anyone reading the book won't know that. They'll think I wrote those lines. And here's the problem: I don't know if the reader will read those lines and think, "Thank God she explained that, because I had no idea what it meant," or if they'll think, "Well, thank you Captain Obvious, for beating me over the head with that explanation."

Because here's the big thing I'm learning from edits:

• My readers aren't psychic. 
• But neither am I.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some toilets to clean.

How to edit a book

Step one: receive email from editor with comments and report on book. Read it, and be immediately outraged that she can find anything, anything at all, wrong with your book.

Step two: drink a lot of wine and tell yourself it'll look better in the morning.

Step three: Look at it in the morning (somewhat blearily). It doesn't look better.

Step four. Reason that the editor's job is to find fault with the book. That by eliminating faults the book will become stronger. Open file.

Step five: Howl with outrage that editor doesn't 'get' your jokes.

Step six: Drink more wine.

Step seven: Switch on computer.  Check emails. Conspicuous lack of emails from editor saying, "You know what, just forget about making any changes. It's perfect as it is."

Step seven. Go on Twitter and moan about edits.

Step eight: Blog about how much you hate doing edits.

Step nine: Open file. Do two pages of edits.  Congratulate yourself by...

Step ten: ...checking Twitter again and reporting triumphantly on your progress.

Step eleven: Realise there are still 300 pages left to do. Drink more wine.

Step twelve: Check Twitter. Check Facebook. Read blogs. Send emails. At some time just before dinner, finally get around to opening file containing edits. Do two whole chapters. Celebrate by drinking wine.

Steps thirteen through forty: Repeat the above.

Step forty-one: Send off first round of edits. Celebrate with vodka.

Call off the search

If you're reading this message it means I haven't made it out of the Editing Cave alive. Just remember that I love you, and there may still be hope that I'll see you again some day. I just need to overthrow the chains of my jailers--I mean editors--and break free. But whatever you do, don't come in after me. It's not safe in here.