Doing a bit of research myself was the only way to sort out my confusion on whose side to take on the battle, which seems to be going on for ages, that quality has been having against quantity. With quantity favouring me big time for all this while, I had to take the drastic change by switching over to quality. I tell you, with editing also in the package, it was not easy.

After figuring what the package has before I started the whole process, I embraced myself. Four edits for an 800-word article was stretching myself to the limit. 

Old School is too Cool!

I have tried editing in the laptop, but it just does not get my creative juices to flow. The good old style of editing on paper with a pencil helped me better than the digital form and added to that; it made me feel like Picasso as I fervently crafted my article.

I guess the High Definition screen made the letters clear but blinded the errors. The sound of scribble as the pencil goes about editing can not be replaced by any modern pen.

The first edit!

The first edit

This was the easiest. The article did not need much of editing because half of it was missing. I began writing the remaining half and later added it in the digital version. While doing the double change (on paper and digital), my eyes caught the glitches better.

The second edit!

More red than usual

The second edit was the most cumbersome of them all. Out of enthusiasm that my article was finally shaping up, I ended up creating empty pockets throughout the article. Getting opinions from friends gave me fresh pairs of eyes and the power to look beyond the text and between the lines. It was at the end of this edit the article finally took shape, and I could smile as the article was now worthy to be posted as it stood at a good score of 950 words.

The third edit!

Finally!!

The third was finding better alternatives to words and checking on sentences and grammar. With the little changes, and a cut of 150 words the article felt better weaved.

The final edit!

As I consciously reduced the word count, I had to make sure I don’t cut out the meaning. The very last edit, in the digital format, was to do a final check of the structure, font sizes, pictures and grammar.

Before breakfast, in my ritualistic mornings, was when I did the edit on paper.

One giveaway for you is to make sure you properly space out one edit from the other and to be prepared for any number of iterations. The more, the merrier but knowing when to stop is crucial as well else people like William Zinsser would have ended up his book On Writing Well, with, “Well folks, the secret to writing well is to write well”.

“Being your own critique is challenging but rewarding.“

If 800 words took me four edits and three days, imagine an 80,000-word novel. Hats off to all the authors out there!

“Success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance and self-criticism”. I don’t know if Einstein said that, but it makes a lot of sense.

Share here!

65 Comments

  1. Great Work Arun. It shows up in the quality of the finished piece.

  2. Fantastic post but I was wanting to know if you could write a litte more on this subject?
    I’d be very grateful if you could elaborate a little bit further.
    Bless you!

    1. Author

      Hello.. Will write more.Thanks for the support

  3. I constantly spent my half an hour to read this
    website’s articles all the time along with a cup of coffee.

    1. Author

      Thank you so much Angelita. That is very kind of you. Although I am not frequent with my articles, it is because of your support I keep writing. I am grateful.

  4. Hi there! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but
    after reading through some of the post I realized it’s new to me.
    Nonetheless, I’m definitely glad I found it and
    I’ll be book-marking and checking back frequently!

    1. Author

      Thank you Jerry. Keeping the blog’s article around my personal experiences has kept it unique. Thank you once again

  5. I’m really inspired together with your writing abilities as neatly
    as with the format in your weblog. Is that this a paid
    theme or did you customize it yourself? Anyway
    keep up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to look a great weblog like this one nowadays..

    1. Author

      Hi Christine. I bought the domain from GoDaddy and the mapped it to this wordpress. The theme is not a paid one. I do however have to customise a lot more.

  6. Nice respond in return of this question with solid arguments and describing all regarding that.

    1. Author

      Thank you Sandy. Keeping it precise is a good way to go about blogging. I hope I am doing a good job at it, and I hope to get better at it too

  7. What’s up, I read your blog daily. Your writing style
    is awesome, keep doing what you’re doing!

    1. Author

      Would love to get in touch with you through other means. Please do click on the social links in the page and drop me a message either in FB or instagram

  8. Greetings! Very helpful advice in this particular post!
    It’s the little changes which will make the most significant changes.
    Many thanks for sharing!

    1. Author

      Thank you Edison. You know what they say “The Devil is in the details”

  9. Hi, i believe that i saw you visited my web site thus i got here to
    go back the prefer?.I am attempting to to find issues to improve my
    web site!I assume its adequate to use a few of your ideas!!

    1. Author

      Please let me know what is needed and how I can help. Do drop me a message.

  10. Heya i am for the first time here. I came across this board and I find It really useful & it helped me out
    a lot. I hope to give something back and help others like you
    helped me.

    1. Author

      Hi Gita. That is very kind of you. And it is what we need to do. Help others along the way

  11. Hey! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay.
    I’m undoubtedly enjoying your blog and look forward to new posts.

    1. Author

      Hi Caludia. Thank you for the support. I am not active on Twitter. But please do drop me a message in either instagram or Facebook. You can find the links on my webpage(homepage of this blog)

  12. Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your article seem to be running off
    the screen in Safari. I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know.
    The design look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon. Kudos

    1. Author

      Thank you so much for the feedback. I will look into it. Thank you

  13. I read this post fully regarding the difference of most
    up-to-date and preceding technologies, it’s amazing article.

  14. Normally I don’t learn article on blogs, however I wish to say that this write-up
    very pressured me to check out and do it! Your writing style has been surprised me.
    Thanks, very nice post.

  15. This site was… how do you say it? Relevant!! Finally I’ve found something
    which helped me. Thank you!

    1. Author

      Thank you Linette. I am glad I wrote this for you

    2. Author

      Am glad that you liked the article. Thank you so much

  16. I am regular visitor, how are you everybody? This article posted at this website is actually fastidious.

    1. Author

      Thank you Leia. I am happy that you like my articles. However I also would love to know what else I should write about. Drop me a message please. Thanks!

  17. First off I want to say great blog! I had a quick question which I’d like to ask if you do not mind.
    I was curious to know how you center yourself and clear your thoughts before writing.
    I have had a difficult time clearing my thoughts in getting my ideas out there.
    I truly do take pleasure in writing but it just seems like the
    first 10 to 15 minutes are usually wasted simply just trying to figure out how to begin. Any ideas or hints?
    Kudos!

    1. Author

      I Celina. There are various tips regarding this. Mostly I got them out of experience in writing. I would like to understand your question better. So please do drop me a message in my social media links. Facebook or instagram or even email me to shinarun@gmail.com and we can take this conversation there.

  18. I need to to thank you for this excellent read!! I certainly enjoyed every little bit of it.
    I’ve got you book-marked to check out new stuff you post…

    1. Author

      Thank you Sabine. Your support is highly encouraging and I hope to write frequently

  19. Hey I am so thrilled I found your blog page, I really
    found you by accident, while I was researching on Digg for something else,
    Regardless I am here now and would just like to say
    thanks a lot for a incredible post and a all round thrilling blog (I also love the theme/design),
    I don’t have time to look over it all at the minute but I have bookmarked it and also added your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read
    a lot more, Please do keep up the fantastic work.

    1. Author

      Thanks a lot Dani. I am glad that you like my blog!

  20. I like the valuable information you provide in your articles.

    I’ll bookmark your blog and check again here frequently.
    I’m quite certain I’ll learn lots of new stuff
    right here! Best of luck for the next!

  21. I’m not sure why but this site is loading incredibly slow for
    me. Is anyone else having this problem or is it a issue on my end?

    I’ll check back later and see if the problem still exists.

  22. Have you ever considered publishing an e-book or guest authoring on other websites?
    I have a blog centered on the same information you discuss and would love to have you
    share some stories/information. I know my readers would value your work.
    If you’re even remotely interested, feel free to shoot me an email.

  23. Hey there would you mind stating which blog platform you’re working with?

    I’m planning to start my own blog soon but I’m having a difficult time choosing between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and
    Drupal. The reason I ask is because your layout seems
    different then most blogs and I’m looking for something completely unique.
    P.S My apologies for getting off-topic but I had to ask!

    1. Author

      Not a problem at all Marty. I use wordpress. I bought the doamin and SSL from GoDaddy and mapped it to wordpress

  24. I have been surfing online more than 3 hours nowadays, yet I by no means found any interesting article like yours.

    It is lovely value enough for me. Personally, if all site owners and bloggers
    made just right content as you did, the web will likely be
    a lot more helpful than ever before.

  25. I absolutely love your site.. Very nice colors & theme. Did you develop this amazing site yourself?
    Please reply back as I’m looking to create my very own site and want to
    know where you got this from or what the theme is named. Thanks!

  26. Hi, I log on to your blogs daily. Your humoristic style is witty,
    keep doing what you’re doing!

  27. My brother suggested I might like this web site.
    He used to be entirely right. This submit truly made my day.
    You cann’t believe just how a lot time I had spent
    for this information! Thanks!

    1. Author

      Thank you Elvera. I am happy you liked this piece.

  28. When I initially commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get four e-mails with the same comment.
    Is there any way you can remove me from that service? Many thanks!

    1. Author

      Almeda. I will have a look at it and send how to avoid the extra mails. Can you please reach out to me via the social links I have posted in the blog?

  29. Hi there, i read your blog occasionally and i own a similar
    one and i was just curious if you get a lot of spam
    feedback? If so how do you reduce it, any plugin or anything you can advise?
    I get so much lately it’s driving me crazy so any support is very much appreciated.

    1. Author

      Hi Larry. I have WordPress. WordPress by itself filters out spam comments

  30. Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an really long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t show up.
    Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyway, just wanted to say superb blog!

    1. Author

      Ira, I am so sorry that you lost the content. But I am humbled by your appreciation. Thank you very much

  31. A motivating discussion is definitely worth comment. I do believe that you ought to publish more about this
    topic, it may not be a taboo subject but typically people don’t
    speak about these issues. To the next! Best wishes!!

  32. Woah! I’m really loving the template/theme of this site.
    It’s simple, yet effective. A lot of times it’s hard to get that “perfect balance”
    between user friendliness and visual appearance. I must say you’ve done a fantastic job
    with this. In addition, the blog loads very quick for me on Chrome.

    Exceptional Blog!

  33. Pretty section of content. I simply stumbled upon your weblog and in accession capital to assert that I acquire in fact enjoyed account your blog posts.
    Any way I will be subscribing to your feeds or even I achievement you get admission to consistently fast.

    1. Author

      Thank you very much. Please get in touch via my social media feed 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *