To Edit or Not to Edit

Back on the subject of writing, I've been having an interesting time since the last (writing-related) post. I've completed a few short stories and, with the help of one particular member of our on-line writing group, edited one story to such a degree that it was completely transformed. Not only did Ron have me draw on emotions I've shied away from before because they were too painful, but he got me to really see the metamorphosis possible with editing.

I've also read two books that have got my mind thinking differently. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain is the story of Hadley and Ernest Hemingway's life in Paris in the '20s (the subject is also covered in Hemingway's A Moveable Feast which I read a couple of months ago, so I've found it fascinating). Just reading about the likes of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein and Pound, how they worked, the torments they often went through, rejections they received and just how odd their lives were, has inspired me to write. I've got the beginnings of two books in my head and notes jotted down on paper as I find I'm getting snippets of ideas and conversations for both of them popping up all over the place.

I also read The Rector's Wife by Joanna Trollope. Its subject matter has a bearing on the book I wrote before I started my first OU course. Post OU, I tossed it aside as complete bilge-water that would never see the light of day. Now, I'm not so sure that with some serious editing and rewriting, it doesn't actually have some potential. I've not seen it for a year, so I've printed it out and I'm going to spend time this weekend reading through it and deciding if I should consign it to the bin permanently and concentrate on the new stuff buzzing around inside my head, or finish what I started and actually get it to the point where I'd not be ashamed to put my name to it and try and get it published.

And I really ought to do something with the short stories that I've written in the past few weeks. It seems a shame to have spent so much time on them only to do nothing with them.

So, green pen at the ready, I'm off to edit.