#172: Prayer for Self-Editing

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Let's pray for clarity and confidence as you self edit your book. So now that your first draft is done, remember this is an ugly, messy first draft. It's still a construction zone, but now it's time to refine. But self editing can bring up the inner critic and a lot of self doubt. So maybe you're second guessing everything or feeling stuck on how to make improvements, or you're just stuck in the continual editing cycle and you just can't get out. That's usually fueled by perfectionism. But God is still in this process as well and he will give you clarity as you begin to shape your book. Cj, why don't you pray for us as we move into the self editing phase? Phase.

The passage I'm reading here for this topic is Mark 8:3:25 and it says, Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Then spitting on the man's eyes, he laid his hands on him and asked, can you see anything? Now? The man looked around. Yes, he said, I see people, but I can't see them very clearly. They look like trees walking around. Then Jesus placed his hands on the man's eyes again and his eyes were opened. His sight was completely restored and he could see everything clearly. Just looking at this, it reminds me of where we're at in our self editing right now. We look at these manuscripts and we see something, but we can't see it very clearly. Similar to this man, it looks like trees just walking around. And yet Jesus comes in and says, let me give you even more clarity. Let me put my hands on your words, on your manuscript. And Father, we are asking, we are asking for the clarity that can only come from you. That ability to look at what we've written already and to go through and say this needs more clarity or this needs fixed over here, or I can adjust the way I said this phrase or I can remove this altogether. It's just fluff, it doesn't need to be in here. And so Father, I am asking for any of those that are in that place where things seem fuzzy, things just seem trees walking around. They can't really see clearly. I want to pray Lord, for clarity upon our manuscripts. I want to pray Lord that as we continue to self edit, we wouldn't be hard on ourselves. We would just continue to know exactly what you're wanting us to tweak, what you're wanting us to shift, what you're wanting us to do in terms of the rearrangement or the rephrasing of something. So Lord, we know that clarity comes from you and we're asking for this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. As I was praying for all of you self editing your manuscripts, I got a picture of silverware and like CJ and I don't have real silver like silverware but I've watched some of the different shows or I've read books that were from the previous eras in the 1800s in, in in England and where these wealthy families, they would have servants that would polish their silverware. And I got this picture of polishing silverware before a big event or before a big dinner. And now it's time to polish your manuscript. Now you may be trying to get out every little last spot and every little last speck of dust. And I want to tell you it's not going to be perfect. How many of you have ever read a traditionally published book and you found mistakes, you found things that needed edited that were missed? There are going to be little things even just like with silverware. It's like you can't get every single little speck of dust or maybe something will fly on it after you shine it. But so I want you to know it's never going to be perfect. But. But you can do the work that God is leading you to do. You can self edit, you can do the things so that your manuscript will shine. Let me pray for you Lord. Thank you so much that you give us what we need in every phase of writing, publishing and marketing our books. And in this self editing phase, I just pray that you would help every kingdom writer that's listening and in this phase to polish like the pros like to polish their manuscript, but not to get stuck in the endless self editing that can cause them to never publish. We pray that you would give them the wisdom and help them to move forward as they can. And we just thank you for this in Jesus name. And I just also want to mention if you're in the self editing phase, just know that we always recommend that you hire an editor. So this is not the final draft yet. This is is just your self edited version. You will have some expert advice coming soon that can help you take it to the final draft.