In chatting with other authors, I’ve learned that the first edits to a new manuscript are a thing of individual preference. Some writers churn out their entire first draft, get it all on the page, before they edit or change a thing. Others review and edit “today” what they wrote “yesterday”. Another writer will file her first draft away for a month or longer before, “opening it and editing it with fresh eyes.”
Looking back on the time I spent writing Still the Caretaker: A Latvian Girl’s Journey, I see that I write the way I cook—every day, editing/cleaning as I go.
In 2009, I tidied and edited draft #1 of Still the Caretaker as I wrote, but truthfully, it was still a rough jumble that needed hours of work. With some newly acquired historical information to incorporate, I went to work on a “tear into it” edit that resulted in draft #2.
My sister Connie (now deceased) was an elementary grades teacher and a sharp-eyed reader who drilled into everything she read. She read draft #2. Her chief comment was: “I want to feel Zaiga’s internal struggles and be in-her-head as she processes the upheaval and trauma the enemy occupation and war is causing.”
In September 2012, I moved to northern Virginia. The manuscript traveled, tucked away in my laptop file. On a January morning in 2013, with the binder of my sister’s notes beside me, I started draft #3.
That spring, attending an event given by Poets & Writers at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, I lunched with two women who invited me to checkout their all-female critique group. They explained that, monthly, they read portions of each member’s work-in-progress and then came together for a potluck and discussion. I read the submissions they provided and attended their next meeting; I’d found my tribe.
A critique group made up of people who listen closely and can adapt to reading a variety of genres is a rare and wonderful thing. I joined the group. Over amazing potluck dinners and wine, we discussed our works-in-progress, our plots and structure, character development, setting, use of dialogue and more. Annual writing retreats of two or three days, in a different rural setting each year, were our custom. During Covid, we switched to using ZOOM. My writing and editing skills profited greatly from my being a member of this fabulous group.
In late 2013, it was my writer’s group who suggested I rewrite the book in first-person. First person would add immediacy. The reader would intimately understand this young girl’s confusion, fear, bewilderment, and anger as enemy occupation and war consumes her country.
In rewriting to first person, I slowed down and listened for the voice of this young girl. I moved more deeply into her thoughts and developed her ways of expressing herself. The writer’s group read sections of the new manuscript and encouraged me to go deeper still.
In 2024, I was ready for the next steps and hired a professional line editor and later a copy editor. Following each of these, I made numerous changes and corrections to ready the manuscript for publication. Each edit tightened and polished the manuscript.
In closing, I can’t adequately describe the value I place on editing—both the editing I do as part of my writing process and what I do with the help of my critique group and professional editors.
