So you're thinking about editing your novel huh? That means you need to pat yourself on the back right now because you did the hardest thing a first time author has to do. You finished the first draft. And you thought you were done didn't you? Ha!

Let me just put this out there: the first draft stinks. No one is immune to this. You might think it's a work of literary mastery and it should be published as it is. Trust me, you're wrong. My second novel, Forbidden, was written in 19 days. No, I'm not kidding. I thought it was perfect as it was. But when I sat down to edit, I realized it wasn't. Granted, it wasn't bad. But it needed some fleshing out.

My writing style is to write down the bones. I just let myself go and get the words on the paper and that's it (NP, that's writing down the bones right? That's what I got from reading the book anyway). The bones might be 158 pages single spaced. They might be fantastic fiction as they are. But they are bones. If you leave them as bones, you have a skeleton and we all know skeletons can't live on their own.

So what's real time editing? That's the title of this post and you want to know what it is right? Real time editing is my secondary style of editing. You don't just edit once. If you do, you're in trouble. Before I start real time editing, I go through and comb my work. I pull scenes out and move them around or add new ones or whatever it needs. Then I read it aloud to my husband. That's real time editing. It's a live audio book with a lot of pauses.

Reading it aloud to him allows me to catch most of the gramatical problems and I'm able to hear how it sounds on the page. It also enables me to go through the work word by word. If I get caught up in my own story, I must be doing something right.

Real time editing might not work for you. But the point of this post is that you will edit more than once. If you aren't, you need to. But don't get down on yourself. Utilize the tools you have. Now sit down and write your three pages.