editing
Every now and then, I realise just how much work I’ve done.
Often I feel like I’m lazy, never applying myself properly, never quite getting things right…Then someone will ask me how many times I read over things and edit and rewrite, and I’ll tell them that I reworked the first 100 pages of The Book Thief somewhere around 150 to 200 times. (I usually spare them the conservative estimate of 1,000 edits for the start of Bridge of Clay, which was definitely a bit unhealthy…)
Either way, there are reams of unseen writing – whole chapters who exist but don’t quite live. So much work is done in the dark, but that’s what lays the foundation. It keeps me close to it, it helps me know it – like learning another language…The finished book only appears because of work we never see.
