With my short story "Rain" now finish, I am editing a serious work for the first time since my return to writing. I had been fully prepared to dread the experience. Everything I had read about the editing stage seemed to be negative, except where written by a professional editor.

My experience so far, however, has been fairly positive. Editing involves a different set of challenges, but I haven't found myself begrudging this stage in the process. I can't say I don't understand the complaints of the writers who have complained about editing though. After all, editing is not writing It's not story creating. If done correctly--in the correct mindset--it's not really even creative. For an author, I can see editing could sound and feel like the opposite of what they want to do.

I thought about if for a while and I decided I don't dread editing because of how I returned to writing every day. I needed time writing without in my life in order to become the serious-minded writer I strived to be. When I was younger, I simply wanted to create stories. I wanted to create worlds and people. And, as is commonly the case, I felt anything I wrote was perfect, that anyone who didn't enjoy my writing just didn't understand it. I considered editing the story a sell-out move. I liked the stories, so who was I trying to please. I felt anything I did to change the story would diminish it.

Nearly two decades without writing every day passed. In that time, I matured in a number of ways. I got married. I became a father. I returned to college. I became a professional graphic artist and web designer. Marriage taught me to grow up. Fatherhood taught me there's a time to play and a time to be serious. College taught me how to complete something I started. Becoming a professional taught me how enjoy my creativity while I earned money. When I returned to writing every day, I found I had the ability to get serious about writing. I had the tools it took to formulate an initial idea and see it through to completion. And, just as importantly, I found I didn't begrudge the editing process.

For me, editing is another necessary process in achieving a finished product. The writing may be more creatively fun; however, the editing is the artist in me, stepping back and looking at the canvas, seeing that a proportion is not quite as I envisioned it and making the necessary correction.

I suppose it all boils down to how you envision the final goal. If your goal is to enjoy writing, then you probably won't enjoy editing. However, if you goal is to complete a finished, salable work, then editing will more likely be as enjoyable a stage as the writing itself.

Some authors I have talked to believe a book can't teach one how to write. Some say you should simply write and have the work critiqued. Some say you should read the work of other authors and study what they have done. Others believe you should get your hands on any and every book that's written. Some even believe that a real author should hold a masters in fine arts.

I subscribe to the believe that if you immerse yourself in Writing (note the capital W) you'll do just fine, hell, more than fine. I believe it is one's deep, honest interest and daily dedication to the craft that will, in the end, make for a better writer. That emersion should probably come in part from all the forms mentioned above. The most important element is the dedication to improvement itself.

If you ask ten authors, you'll get ten different opinions on how to become a better writer. But what works for them may not match your style or even lead you to the correct goal. You have to know yourself and what type of writer you want to be in the end. You need to find your guidance in writers who are working toward the same goal or who are there now. But even then, you have to do it your own way or else you'll just be a poor copy of that other person.

Think about popular music. Each of us has our favorite type of music. Better yet, each of us has an image of what kind of music we would want to perform if we could live the dream. For me, it's a mix of melody, techno and hard rock. Would I get my best advice on how to from Carrie Underwood or Marilyn Manson. Manson, right? But even then, I wouldn't strive to become Manson. Instead, I would model my study after him, using my own experiences and pressing toward a goal of my own definition.

Do the same with your pursuit of writing. I love Neil Gaimon (among others), but I don't want to be spoken of as another Neil Gaimon. I'd rather get a call from him someday in which he tells me he's enjoyed a certain story or a certain something-or-other I added to a story. I think that can only happen if I continue to dive into Writing every day.

So what do I do? Outside of actually putting pen to paper every day without exception, I give myself a lot of wiggle room when it comes to my enrichment. One day, I'll read fiction. Another day, I'll read about the limited omniscient point of view, which, following a luke-warm critique of the beginning of a short story, was recently necessary. I also subscribe to Writers Digest, so some day's I'll read an article before bed. I also have a yahoo page set up that is pretty much nothing but feeds from writing-related sites: blogs, podcasts, traditional websites. Having readily available writing links allows me to keep myself moving forward even while I'm at work. Again, it's the connection to Writing, not the specific activity that I feel is most important.

I just completed the first draft of Rain, the short story about a New York man's return to the back-woods of Tennessee where he was raised, his vigil over the dying man who helped him grow up gay in the bible belt, and his search for a baby boy.

I sat in the Starbuck's inside Barnes & Noble and sipped on my mocha as I typed the last gratifying words.

The story's completion stands out to me as a major achievement since it is the first work of any size beyond poetry that I have completed since my return to writing nearly two years ago.

I struggled with the decision to set aside my novel to concentrate on 'Rain' and now I can say I made the right decision. I woke up on Sunday morning two weeks ago with the story complete in my mind. I rushed downstairs, having grabbed the composition notebook I keep next to me to capitalize on moments such as these. Two hours later, I had transcribed the synopsis and I could breathe easy.

In the past, I had relied upon my digital voice recorder, but for an entire storyline, I risked becoming sidetracked. Additionally, the family was still asleep at 4am, so I risked waking someone who was sure to ruin the moment.

Over the next two weeks, with only one notably delay caused by mushiness in the middle scenes, I pushed out around three pages a day. Against all that I had read, I dared to lightly self-edit.

Later on the Sunday I finished the draft, I met up with my parents who had driven from Tennessee to visit me here in San Antonio. Both are avid and intelligent readers. They blessed me with a level of patience I have rarely seen from them: they allowed me to read through all of the 34 pages and offer their wonderful criticism. At points, I actively steered myself away from emotional response and toward mature, silent acceptance. I'm glad to have kept my head. As with any critique, they offered points I agreed with and suggestions I will in all probability not follow.

I'm extremely happy my boys were present for the reading. They will remember that it is possible to begin with an idea and end up with a finished piece of respectable size and quality. They will also understand that first drafts, no matter the skill of the author, are inherently riddled with apparent idiocy in both thought and syntax and that is acceptable for a first draft.

I'm nearly finished with my short story Rain in which a wealthy gay man from New York returns to the backwoods Tennessee hospital to be with his dying middle school instructor. The lead character is possibly the most interest for me since my writing resurgence last year. His mannerisms and outlook kept me smiling all through the writing. I can't wait to have the first section critiqued.

I have been a little conflicted about setting down The Letter to William Waiklin, but this story had to be written while the iron was hot.

www.sawritersguild.com

I became a member of the San Antonio Writers Guild early in 2007. Now I'm not normally a joiner, but having read extensively about what to and what not to do to become a successful writer, I joined. I felt out-of-place and I didn't enjoy it but I believed everything I had read couldn't be wrong, right? So I stuck it out and returned until, around the beginning of summer, I had relaxed out of my natural social shell enough for it to feel, to a certain extent, normal.

The meetings run like this: you have your normal speech about the state of the Guild including good news / bad news, introduction of new members, news about contests or scams. That first drubbing of boredom ends with the obligatory pleas for members to become more active, head up committees, bring in guests, write more, and so on.

Then, if the person who was tricked into heading up the committee in charge of rounding up a guest speaker has done the work, a guest speaks about writing, publishing or their book that just came out. With guest speakers, it's hit or miss. Oh, how much I'd love to give specific examples of guest speakers who have not only failed to hold my interest, but who have tempted me to consider putting violence upon them. But when a guest speaker is good, it's so worth having attended. Take last night's guest (February '08 monthly meeting) Marcus Henderson Wilder, a 70-year-old man who warned us that he had never been asked to speak before a crowd before so to please stop him at 20 minutes. Nearly 45 minutes passed and no one in the crowd lifted a finger, nor did it likely cross anyone's mind to do so. Though he did speak in a side-tracked way, sometimes not returning to a point, everything he had to say captivated the room. (Check out his book, Naïve & Abroad: Pakistan : Travel in a Land of Mullahs at iUniverse.) Folks who have lived interestingly and have taken the time to document in writing their adventure are an inspiration.

Finally, the membership breaks into groups by genre. I meet with the other fiction writers while others meet with non-fiction or children's literature and whatever other genres are represented. In those smaller groups, whomever has up to 15 pages of work to share with the group hands out copies, someone reads and each member takes his turn offering feedback. The goal is the help one another become better writers. I've heard of some critique groups whose membership is infected with competitiveness and rivalry, but I haven't run into those darker qualities since joining.

I joked last night that coming to the Guild meetings--and the critique group that meets outside of the monthly meeting, but I'll write about that another time--is the opposite of a 12-step program to quit addiction. For me, the idea is to keep coming so that I might develop a positive addiction. And it's helped. I continue to write every day...something...just keep writing no matter what has happened.