I’m sure it is difficult for everyone who writes to edit their own work and be objective and coolly critical, not carried along by the events which the author can see so clearly in their imagination, nor too close to their characters who they have lovingly created and moulded and worked on… and most of all to be able to spot the typos, grammatical errors, repetitions, clichés, nonsense, which sometimes (often) creeps into a manuscript when the creator’s back is turned!
As I’ve mentioned before I have lots of ways of trying to distance myself from my work… I no longer hand write my stories, for two reasons; one I can’t read my own handwriting, and also it is so familiar I get carried along in the stream of it and become blind to mistakes. So, having read my work through several times, used a spell-checker to correct the most obvious errors, I then read the whole thing aloud… not as a murmur but as if I am reading it to an actual audience, in a loud, clear voice, trying to be expressive and in character when reading direct speech. Sometimes I read my story in reverse – the last chapter, then the penultimate, then the one before and so on… this helps greatly with spotting errors of continuity or repeated incidents or phrases, or sequences which are out of synch, or not with a clear line of progression.
At the moment, having done all of the above, I have downloaded my story onto my Kindle and I’m reading it in that format, just as my readers will (I hope!) I’ve already spotted quite a few things which need changing or correcting. This will probably take me several full days… and then one final read through…
After that is checking I have chapters of roughly the same length, that I have all the necessary notes, copy-write notices, disclaimers, additional notes at the end… oh and a title… yes, a title and a cover…
I am within sight of having a publication date!!
If you haven’t read any of my e-books yet, here is a link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=lois+elsden
Lois Elsden 
Another great way to edit that you might know is to print it out, though I think using a Kindle is the same thing–just changing to a new format. Sounds like you’ve got a system down!
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Yes – that really does help because you can scribble things onto the paper, can’t you! Thanks for reminding me!
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