I need to finish my April NaNo and edit my November NaNo.  My editing process is pretty much:

Read through and change bad things and take them out as you go along.

Repeat as necessary.

I haven't actually finished a lot of novels, and haven't completely edited all the way through any of them, so this is kind of what I've done for my other things.

I pretty much do it the same way and I always have a thesaurus and dictionary on hand in case I want a more descriptive word somewhere. After editing once I type it because then I can see each word individually and determine whether it fits or not. I also like having my mom or a friend read over it since they can often find a mistake I missed.

That's where I am, Gollum. I haven't even finished my novel. And when I do, I'll probably do just that, go through and read it, take out and add as necessary, repeat. We'll see how that goes, since I've never edited anything before.

I am terrible at editing. For example: I have one story on the line for publication, but I haven't edited it in a million years and that line seems to be slipping away. It's about robots. (Of course)

I love editing. I really do. It is my passion. Writing isn't half as fun as editing to me.

How I edit depends on what I'm dealing with:

Short story, written by me: Write. Throw out and rewrite differently. Throw out and rewrite differently. Repeat until the idea I actually started with is only a vague memory. Experiment with all kinds of different things. Change tenses, person (you know, first, third, etc.), character's names and details, locations. Fiddle until I have something that I think I could like in ten years if I worked on liking it and squinted at it a little. Attack it. Cross things out, rewrite, cross out the rewrites, cross out the cross out of the rewrites, change, change, change, fix, fix, fix. And by then it's time to turn the darn thing in. I don't write that mcuh for fun.

Longer thingymajig, written by me: Write. Change. Change some more. Add, erase, change, throw out whole sections, write new sections, change the theme or the plot in major ways...

Essays written by me: Write. Proofread. Turn in and promptly forget about it.

Something written by someone else: I take a pen or a keyboard and make annotations across the whole thing. Then I hand it to the person and say these are my thoughts. And then they cry, "Why are there so many things? My friends/mommy/teacher lying through their teeth say I'm a good writer!" I say, "You are a good writer, but even the best authors can improve their work."

I haven't had anything to edit in a couple of months. This annoys me. 

Captcha says anpo. Great, now the song Sanpo is stuck in my head. 

I used to hate editing with a passion. I hated everything I wrote the minute I reread it and wanted to throw it out.

Ergo, my system was write a story, leave it for a month, THEN edit it. It doesn't sound so terrible after I've left the darn thing for a while.

The only problemo with this is that during the month in between I get a new idea and the old one immediately loses its lustre, and I no longer want to make it better.

So I have taken a leaf out of Nero's book and have locked myself in my room for half a night and forced myself to edit my stories, and not give up amid the tears and the desires to tear the pages in half.

After doing that, I type in the new and much changed draft and smile when I realize that the story is not so terrible after all.

That is an example of my mercurial writing tendencies. I couldn't live without writing, but I nearly die in doing it.

@L: What was the French swear word/character's name??

YAY! I have just been chosen to write and read the farewell address at 8th grade graduation! The speech consists of the teachers, new students and memories from preK to this year. It will be tough to make the speech flow, but I think I can do it. I hope it is good and interesting; at least others can edit it. Wish me luck!

Congratulations, Teresa! What an honor. You might ask your classmates to submit memories for you to include.

Admin

I can edit other people's stuff just fine. However this is how I edit my own:

1. Spellcheck.

2. Read through and check for things spellcheck didn't pick up on, like "bad" instead of "bed."

3. Forget it, I'm lazy and I'm not editing this.

End. Then I go make myself a cupcake and congratulate myself on a job well done.

I don't think I'll edit my April Nano, just because I want to leave it the way it is. I really love the plot and everything, but it's more suited to a decade long, serialized manga (and I can't draw people. I am a marvelous colorer, but I can't draw people) I don't want to shrink it, so I'll read it over in six months and then decide. My November Nano was awful, so I really should go back and basically rewrite the whole thing, but... finals. Art foundations summer school. Tennis. Piano.

I'm lazy.