How two sentences can take all day to write.

I have finally finished editing a short story for People's Friend.
I had a nice letter from them asking for just a couple of changes, which
sounded reasonable, I thought, 'I can do that', 'it shouldn't take long'
How wrong I was!
It was just a few small things, but changing one sentence changed the mood of the whole paragraph, then altering the paragraph meant altering something else on the previous page and so on.
I had to stop after several hours of deleting and writing and deleting, as I was on the verge of throwing my laptop out of the window.
Anyway, I have printed off the story ths morning and I'm off to the Post Office, with fingers firmly crossed.
If they don't like it this time, I may well cry. A lot.

Simple changes, there's no such thing is there?

Finding a home for the WIP

I decided to have a go at the re-vamp of the fantasy story, it had been waiting for a good editing for a long while.
The first three pages were quite good, I'd re written the beginning a while back, so that bit was OK. Then I spent three hours on it and managed to get to page 8.
Naively I thought I could just have a read through, liven up my characters a wee bit, tighten up the plot, get rid of any unnecessary sentences and job done!
There are so many unnecessary sentences, I've decided best home for this particular novel is in the recycle bin. Talk about drivel.

Be gone you historical fantasy you! Thine tale is dismally dull, thy plot woefully wooly and thine characters be wimsically wooden.

Sometimes you have be brutal. I shall keep the ideas in the form of a few sentences, and perhaps one day it will become the start of a new and intriguing novel.

I am consoling myself that I wrote it a long time ago, so I must have learnt something over the years as I am now able to recognise a load of rubbish when I read it.

On the plus side I have subbed a new story to TWN and have two ready to post off to PF, so I haven't completely wasted the weekend.

It is hard to let go though, I was quite fond of it. How do you cope with brutal editing, does it ever end up in the recycle bin?
'You are about to send 'Useless WIP' to the recycle bin, are you sure?'

Of course I'm not sure...