When most people finish their first draft they have no idea of the mind-numbing and heroic journey they are about to embark on. Finishing the first draft is only the beginning… as editing may be one of the hardest f—— things you’ll ever do.
Here are the nine stages of editing your novel (with cats of course!)
1) Your first draft is done! Your vampire romance novel fairly flew from your fingertips and all you’ve got left to do is a bit of proofreading. Fantastic, you’ll have this done by lunchtime
3) Two hours later and everything goes to shit. This stage may include fainting, passing out or unconscious daydreaming. You want to bail, and right now
3) You’ve done a bit of research after your near meltdown, only to uncover that there are a MILLION F—— WRITING RULES ON THIS PLANET
4) And just when you think you’re finally done, someone tells you that you need beta readers. But what the hell are they? And where on earth do I find these magical creatures? And you desperately need them too because they are the only people who’ll be able to spot that character who magically came back to life in the third act
5) And now different versions are pouring in from your three different beta readers and the copy you gave to you mum and you can’t handle it and you realise you’ve been working on an old version for the last two weeks and you don’t know what to do and you stare at the current version and wonder how the hell you are going to mash it back together with the old one and you’re thinking why the f– didn’t you buy scrivener when it was on sale
6) To make the writer’s life even more wonderful, you learn that there is such a thing as editor’s block. And it means you’ll do anything, absolutely anything besides editing your novel
7) After a year or so you hand your novel over to a professional editor. For weeks you sit alone in the dark and wonder what they are doing, what they are thinking, if refinancing your mortgage was worth it and how many adverbs they found
8) And then you get your manuscript back from the editor. Only, you can’t see your manuscript anymore. There are all these corrections and additions and explanations ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE, including one that points out a single plot error that makes your entire story pointless
9) After making revisions based on your editor’s suggestions, you hold your manuscript close to your heart and begin to snot-cry like Viola Davis in Fences and you’re wailing and sobbing and you’re just so god damn HAPPY. All the blood, sweat and deleted adverbs were not in vain. You may even begin to hear some music in the background as you reminisce over the hero’s journey you’ve just completed
Good luck everyone and I hope you have a smoother time editing than me! I’m currently at stage 6 and it’s a tough one to get over. If you need a bit of a push like me, here’s some editing resources to get you started:
The Write Life
10 Simple Ways to Edit Your Own Book: https://thewritelife.com/self-editing-basics/
Writer’s Digest
How to Edit Your Book in 4 Steps: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/how-to-edit-your-book-in-4-steps
Adian Editing
Editing Stages of a Book: http://www.adianediting.com/writing-instruction/editing-stages-of-a-book/
The Creative Penn
A great list of editing services: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/editors/
The Expert Editor
My choice for professional editing: https://experteditor.com.au/
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Milly Rogers Author 
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