Tip #2: Be Willing to Delete.

Tip #2: Be willing to delete.

Yep, you have to be willing to hit that painful Delete key. You may compulsively save every version of every thing you write, but for the final version, you must be willing and able to delete material. Sometimes, you'll have to delete everything you've written so far and start over.

Ow, that hurts. Especially when it's a pet novel you've been working on for three years and love some of the characters, it hurts. But if you're not willing to delete, willing to admit that okay, you need to start over to actually have something good in your hands, you won't grow as a writer.

The first time can be the hardest. Your writing's your baby—you wouldn't kill your baby, would you? (If your answer is "Yes," I seriously don't want to know.)

But deleting a section or even scrapping an idea isn't killing your "baby" that's your writing. It's giving it a bath or sending it out to school. That bit of writing that you've had to delete has taught you something; why did you have to delete it?

This is where having critical friends can be so useful. You have to learn to take their (usually justifiably) harsh critique and not take it personally, and endeavor to actually do something about the problems they've found. Sometimes it takes others' proofing and editing of your work to learn what you need to proof and edit.

Pay attention to those lessons, be willing to learn them, and you'll be well on your way to becoming able to edit your own writing.