Fragments of the Edits

Today I had lunch with my friends Vicky and Elly and my story ‘Elephants in Rooms’ came up. I have admit after posting the opening I was unsure what it was about and Vicky had some comments. She said that the opening gave too much away and that after reading it she wasn’t sure what else would shock her. I agree. Before I had spoken to her I had written a total of two pages and the story was basically completed with no message, just a snippet of this woman’s life. It’s a story but a short-short story and not the story I wanted to write. It was more notes of a story I wanted to write, my way of trying to figure out what it was about.

This conversation and reflecting on the story on the way home made me think of edits. In the past year I have become much better at editing my own work. Just the other day I wrote the beginning of a poem, wrote another beginning to it and then realised this wasn’t a poem but a short story. I’ve gotten through over six drafts of the opening chapter of Til Death Do Us Part – a horror story I wrote a few months ago – and I’m still not happy with it.

Years ago, when I was fourteen and writing fantasy ‘epics’ and believed I would be published by sixteen I wrote a draft and thought this was it. This, of course, led to a lot of rejections. I found a folder yesterday of the rejections I’ve received from literary agents – some of which were really kind to me – and I decided that I think with the right amount of work and research I might have it in me to send off Til Death Do Us Part and try again. I have been putting it off – not because I am in fear of rejection – my fourteen-year-old self wasn’t so why should I now? – but because I was waiting for my MA to come along and the possibility of publication there – if I get it, of course. But life is short, folks, and why wait? So I’ve decided I’m going to edit and send and see what happens.

Another thing that came from the conversation was how much work the three of us have to do. The girls are in their third year and have dissertations and the thoughts of what to do when they finish. I’m in my second but a lot of the work I have to do is my own work – short stories I want to send off to magazines, proposals to give to literary agents, reviews I have to do for Bookgeeks. You may want to have a poke around at some of the reviews I’ve done on there - http://www.bookgeeks.co.uk/author/thomas/ - and, perhaps, have a look at the reviews in general.

But today I was basically thinking about editing and how much we have to edit to get something completed. My lecturer once said that no story is finished and perfect, it only come to the point when you have to part with the piece and let others see it. No matter what the costs.