The Throes of Editing

As a writer, you must have heard the not-so-much-spoken-about rule which says; “When you don’t know what to write, write about not knowing what to write.”

That’s one of my reasons for writing this post.

The second is the reason I don’t know what to write about.

I’m thinking and writing at the same time, so please bear with me.

Am I the only writer who can spend five hours or more editing for grammatical errors?

Yep, and it’s why I have not been writing consistently for a while now.

The throes of editing.

It’s 2:52 am.

I enjoy the silence because I’m a creature that thrives in it, and it’s a good time to write too.

So, I opened my notepad and my first thought was; If I write, I’ll still have to edit it for errors.

Grammatical errors I mean, using those editing apps.

My desire to write died with those words.

Back then, I only had to open my WordPress app and write whatever I had on my mind and post it immediately.

Thinking about it, I realise I wrote more when I didn’t have to go through the whole editing thing.

Until I fell into the trap of editing.

As a writer, you know how important it is to edit your work. But if you’re a perfectionist like me then you’d understand why I call it a trap.

One time, I spent more than 12 hours on an editing app just because I wanted it to be perfect. I don’t know if you have spent that amount of time editing but it’s mentally draining.

Most of these editing apps even put a score, that’s clickbait for people who hate settling for less. I mean, which other score is perfect if not a 100?

Yes, I was that kind of student as a child.

However, English is not my first language; officially it is, but in truth, it’s not.

I’m an African.

Try as I might, I can’t get a 100 in a language my parents weren’t taught in school.

But writing is my soul food. So why should I have to be wary of writing because I can’t write in perfect English?

I will edit my work when it’s a job, for a client. But I think from now, my blog posts won’t go through editing apps.

No, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to improve myself as a writer.

It just means I want to get better at writing consistently first, hopefully, perfect grammar will come later.

Nevertheless, I’d like to hear from you.

Has editing ever been an issue for you or I’m the weird one?

© Geenha