I’m an overwriter so I’ll keep this post super short. When writing, at times I explain things that don’t need explaining and sometimes I get carried away with the story. So when I edit, I somehow end up with more words than I had before. *sigh*

On the bright side, an editor once told me that I’m a prolific writer. Still, I’ve been learning the art of cut, cut, cut, and cut some more. Another editor once told me that ‘Delete is an author’s best friend,” and I’ve been working with ‘Delete’ for the past few weeks and I can comfortably say we’re best buddies now.

This weekend I picked up my YA Contemporary Romance MS that I hadn’t touched in months. It’s already complete (but when is a story ever complete?) so I did another editing round on it and here are my main successes.

• Deleted 4.5k words (yippee)
• MS is now at my original target of 90k words
• Improved the pacing, flow, and sentence structure
• Improved the beginning of the story
• Removed unnecessary words

And above all, I’ve fallen in love with this story all over again, and I can’t wait to have this on the shelf one day.

Here’s a little one-line teaser.

PRINCESS DIARIES meets What a Girl Wants, in this modern-day fairy-tale of a spirited teen overcoming all odds in pursuit of her biological father in London.

Happy writing,
Lorraine