Intuitive Editing: How To Confidently Edit Your Writing and Feel Good About Hitting Publish

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How do you feel when you see a red pen?

An excellent question came up during a Q&A session with Finding Flow participants during the last round: 

The gist…

“I can easily write in the flow, but I have some insecurity about editing.”

When writing my first book in 2017, during my first NaNoWriMo challenge (which I don't recommend for most people anymore, especially women), which would become Unfussy Life, I thought writing would be the most challenging phase. 

Nope. Editing challenged me to my core. It requires a lot of rewriting, rearranging, fact-checking, verifying, refining word choice, and … removing.

Editing demands a dance of holding a 10,000-foot view as you turn over every word along the sometimes mucky ground. We're so close to the material at times that it can be hard to see where we even want to go. 

Depending on your writing project and your current stage of the process, this might be a good time to bring in outside reinforcements.

Even if you're hiring a professional to clean up your words and develop your ideas further, you'll still want to perform an edit on your work to give your hired hands a place to start. 

When it comes to your website copy, blogs, and social posts, you're likely editing them yourself. I do all my own editing for my work and my client work. 

Approach editing as an activity with distinct qualities from writing.

While we practice writing without editing, we're letting the words flow, SFD style. Then, when it comes to editing, we have to look at what we wrote and start molding the block of clay we dropped into words. Here are 9 helpful tips to help you approach editing with a light heart (and pen).

1) Let your words rest.

When you’ve taken your draft as far as you can and need to pause before you choose your next step, let your words sit. You might let your words sit for a day, a week, or a month. Be mindful not to let them sit too long without any love — that block of clay could harden into stone.

2) Bring order to chaos.

At first, when you dive into editing, the task might feel muddled and overwhelming. Remind yourself that in nature, what appears chaotic is indeed in perfect order. Trust that order is in your work, and it’s your job to uncover it. You will.

3) Read your writing first. 

Before approaching your writing, pause to read through it. You might pause to read daily or after a few weeks — trust your instincts. If I'm working on a bigger writing project like a book, I write for a few weeks, pause and read, and then edit. 

4) Edit with nature's rhythms.

I swear once I shifted to editing during specific times of the month — it's come together effortlessly. Here's a brief overview of what writing with nature looks like looking at the moon, seasons, and a menstrual cycle (work with the first two if the latter doesn't apply to you): 

• New moon / winter / menstrual phase

  • Set intentions, make decisions, start fresh

• Waxing moon / spring / follicular phase

  • Outlining, brainstorming, fast drafts

• Full moon / summer / ovulation

  • Deep work, review your writing, remove what's not working

• Waning moon / fall / luteal phase

  • Reviewing, editing, refining

Think back to the last time you found editing a challenge. Look at the calendar and see where you were in your cycle (if you have one). Then, look at the moon phase (here's a guide). 

Perhaps you found edits challenging because you were trying to force them when your energy was better suited for outlining, planning, or drafting. Read more about writing with nature’s rhythms here.

There are lots of other nuances in here too, like what astrological sign the moon is moving through, which I teach about in detail during Finding Flow Writing Experiences. 

5) Do a light edit first. 

Approach your edits like a giant ball of tangled Christmas lights. You wouldn't dive into the center of the ball and try to work your way out. You'd start with the easiest section, gently and quickly pull the strand of bulbs apart, and go bit by bit. Maybe you'll untangle a few sections and then let it rest. 

The same goes for your writing. On your first pass through your writing project, move quickly and lightly. Imagine you've got a paintbrush dipped in white paint, and you're approaching a canvas with a light touch — a little sparkle here, a highlight there.

What this looks like:

• Correcting obvious typos and incorrect words with your word processor's spelling and grammar checker

• Adding punctuation

• Doing a find and replace to fix common typos

• Sprinkle in contractions (I am => I’m; we will =>we’ll) — this is the fastest way to make your writing sound conversational and friendly

Then, let those light edits sit again before you cut back in with more focus.

6) Surrendered editing.

We’ve talked about how to surrender at the page when writing, and we can surrender in our editing too. Move quickly, and trust the first words that come to mind. Just as you did when you were writing. As you practice writing without editing, this will eventually become like breathing.

Edit as if there's no time for overthinking. Keep a thesaurus handy if needed, grab the first word that catches your eye, and keep moving.

7) Quiet the inner critic as it pops up.

Notice any negative thoughts as quickly as possible. I like to use what I call a "Cancel process." An unsupportive thought pops in, and I say, "Cancel, reject, delete." Or maybe only one of those. Or, imagine the thought in a bubble outside yourself that you'll pop and watch disappear. You can also imagine painting a big, fat, black X over the thought — no longer visible. Remember, the critics aren’t the ones writing — you are.

8) See editing as creating your voice. 

You create your voice with a blend of writing, reflecting, and editing. I cringe when people say they’re working to find their voice. What if you never found it? You could spend your entire life looking and then hate it when you uncover it. Then what?

Bit by bit, over time, as you evolve, heal wounds, and listen to your intuition, you’ll find that your writing voice is more of a refining process. Here are 20 Writing Prompts To Help You Create Your Writing Voice.

9) Make your words sparkle in layers.

Revising your writing is an opportunity to layer in more of what the piece needs — mood, feelings, consistency, clarity, and texture. Editing is so much more than grammar and spelling — and in the online world, most of the rules from academia and corporate don't apply (woohoo!!!) 

As you edit, you're adding more layers to give the words depth. Going one layer at a time, you might add an emotional layer, sprinkling in feeling words. Or maybe you’ll add a clarity layer — simplifying all your sentences.

Once you've edited an article and posted it on Substack, you might revisit it in six months or a few years later to add in some updates to make it relevant. This is a great way to keep your writing fresh and connect with your readers for years to come.

Practical Editing Tips

Here are my favorite strategies to be your own editor for whatever you're writing. These tips apply to website copy, emails, social posts, sales letters, books, bios — anything at all you want to edit.

Before you dive in with your purple pen (nicer than red), ask yourself these questions:

• What was the purpose of this writing? Is it clear? What does it need?

• Do I have all the pieces I need to edit this, or do I need more research?

• Do I want the reader to feel a certain way? 

• What tone do I want to take?

• Who’s the reader? What are they thinking, feeling, and hoping for in the moment they discover this piece of writing? (if applicable)

• Where do I use complex words when I can replace them with easy-to-understand words? (Keeping your writing simple and clear is an act of service for your reader.)

Proofreading tips when you're close to your work:

• Print it out and review it with a pen.

• Read it aloud and see if it feels natural to you.

• Read from bottom to top, one sentence at a time (my personal favorite for editing pieces I've reviewed too many times to count).

• Increase the font to a super-large size to help you scroll slowly.

• Change the font type for a fresh perspective — go from a sans serif font to a serif (or reverse).

• Read it on a different device — like a phone or tablet if you typically read on your computer.

• Read in a different location — your couch, outside, the kitchen, or somewhere other than where you wrote it.

• Run it through spellcheck or a grammar checker.

Ready to publish? Here are some final questions to run through: 

• Is this complete?

• Is this ready to share or publish?

• If this was published today, would I be confident it’s authentic and accurate?

And the most important one: 

💜 Did I write this from the heart?

Love note: Your writing will improve if you keep writing. The more surrendered you write at the page, writing without a censor, the easier it'll be to clean it up. The more you edit, the easier editing will become. 

Come out of hiding

Hiding your work is your ego. As much as we point to our egos for wanting to be seen or validated, the opposite is also true. If you’re hiding, scared to put your writing out there, this is also the ego trying to protect you. Squash that fucker. 

Hit publish, carry on with your life, and write the next piece. 

Remember to celebrate first. 

P.S. If you catch a typo or two later, it’s okay! We all do it. If it’s on social media, I usually leave it alone. If it's in one of my blogs or on my website, I'll give it a quick fix. I've discovered typos and mistakes in my online writing years after publishing. Falling into perfectionism is a lame reason to blame my lack of publishing. 

Keep writing, keep going, keep building that body of work!

Writing and editing might look different than what you imagine. Surrender and trust that your experience is exactly what you need.

Stuck in your edits?

Try my favorite writing prompt: 

Sit with your draft and ask, "What does this piece of writing need from me?"

Freewrite, no censor, no filter, everything that comes to mind.

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