This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the Helping Writers' Podcast.

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode.

Should you edit as you go?

This is a question just about every writer asks at one point or another.

Part of the reason for the prevalence of the question is that the question is in fact complex and contextual.

In short, the answer to should you edit as you go

isn't always a simple yes or no.

Popular advice usually insists never edit as you go.

And sometimes this is the most advantageous approach.

Other times, however, refusing to edit as you go can lead to a hot mess of a first draft that lands somewhere between

this will take me the rest of my life to fix and this is unsalvachable.

On the other hand, if you do choose the other fork in the road and allow yourself to edit as you go,

you may equally find yourself forever stuck in a morass of perfectionism in which you never

get to have the fun of actually writing and moving your story forward.

Now personally I do edit as I go. I've taken this approach on every

novel I've ever written and it has served me well. Not only does it lead to cleaner

first drafts that require fewer edits at the end, it also helps me course correct stories as quickly as possible.

The alternative often would be to knowingly write a broken first draft.

For some that might work. For me it seems like pointless torture.

But I've come to recognize that whether or not editing as you go is really the best

choice has much to do with each writer's personal process which is based on that individual's personality, strengths, weaknesses,

and even unique lifestyle demands.

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