On editing your own work

A woman wearing glasses and biting on a pencil as she looks at her laptop computer. She is feeling frustrated.

Editing your own work is hard. In fact, it’s nigh on impossible — even for an editor.

A few years ago, as part of my Master of History, I wrote a mini-thesis. At only 14,000 words it was nowhere near as long as a PhD — kudos to anyone who has completed one of those!

Aside from counting towards the completion of my degree, this project has sat gathering dust. After putting so much work into it, I really wanted to publish it, or a version of it. Otherwise, what was the point of all that work? I wanted other people to read about what I had discovered.

So I decided to submit it to the journal of a local history society. The article was about an area of the Brisbane CBD, so it was the right audience. The only issue was, I had to cut the word count back to 6,000 words, including endnotes!

What did I do?

Nothing.

The task so overwhelmed me, I just ignored it. But the thought of it nagged me.

A year later, I decided to take the knife to it. But I wasn’t even sure that it made sense anymore. As I was transforming a scholarly paper to one for a more general audience I needed to remove all the literature review — that was easy. The rest of it I had to restructure. And I couldn’t let go of my first sentence. It was a ‘darling’ I needed to kill.

I was stuck.

Then I decided to ask an editor friend (conveniently one who also had a history degree) to look at it for me. Just a few suggestions from her made me look at the whole paper differently, and I was able to get going again and cut out the required 2000 words.

(Confession: I still need to make the corrections and then submit the article!)

Are you struggling to rewrite an article to fit the requirements of a particular publication? Contact me for a chat about how I might be able to help you.

I've been an editor since 2002 and accredited (IPEd) since 2016. I help writers of history, biography and memoir share their research and stories with the world. I offer manuscript appraisal, copyediting and proofreading services. Let me help you take the next step on your publishing journey.