You’ve done it. You’ve become one of the few, the proud, and the brave who persevere and can proudly say “The End.”
Congratulations. Have a beer. Some chocolate. Get a good night’s sleep because your next adventure begins tomorrow.

There's a secret about editing that people who have never tried it don't know: editing is HARD WORK. I know, pretty shocking, right? When you sit there at the beginning of your newly completed novel, sometimes it's easy to be enthusiastic about the project. You're going to dive in, red pen and delete key blazing, and Fix That Novel. It's also easy to sit and stare at your novel in bleak depression, thinking, "What, me? Fix this?"

Attitude: Before you begin an editing session, adjust your attitude. Don’t go into editing thinking, “This book sucks, therefore I suck, and nothing I do will ever, ever change that.” Think more like someone who has just finished building a ho...

What can you do for you? Make sure to take the time to celebrate after NaNoEdMo, make a date to re-read your edited novel in the first days of April, and continue to make use of the Forums. What can you do for your editing? Learn more about editing, continue to edit your current project, and integrate editing into your daily life.

Sometimes...'to edit' doesn't mean 'to take away.'

You’ve finished a manuscript, and now you’re sitting down to the daunting task of revising it. You page through your text, tearing your hair out because you realize it’s chock full of telling! Where’s all the showing? You know what? This is normal. So let your hair stay where it is.

If you’ve spent any time at all trying to learn to edit your own writing, you’ve doubtless come across “Show, don’t tell.” It’s the first bit of advice most teachers and writing books (including Self-Editing for Fiction Writers) pass on to fledglings.

Having sold eight novels and over sixty short stories and articles, Joe's no stranger to rewriting. Here's what he has to say about editing.

When you first get the idea for a story, there are certain plot elements and scenes that spring to mind. Sometimes they’re pivotal moments. Sometimes they’re just fun moments. Regardless, they’re the moments you most want to write.

Being an author is a bit like entering a beauty pageant - you don't enter the latter if you don't think you're more beautiful than the majority of other women, and you don't do the former unless you think your story is good enough to be on the shelves next to the authors you know and love. Deny it all you want, I peeked into the deepest darkest corners of your soul and you think you've got what it takes. You think you're good. You think your story is good.

Your story sucks.