I hate to break it to you, but if writing with PCS is difficult for you, editing is probably going to be just as bad or worse. But don’t despair! I have figured out some strategies that make it a little bit easier, and they’re coming at you next…

The easiest way to set yourself up for easier editing is by putting that much more thought into the outline before you start writing. I know this is going to go against a lot of the pantsers’ methodology, but it will save you a lot of rearranging and clean up at the back end which, when you’re struggling with concentration and holding thoughts in your mind, can feel a lot like tossing Skittles to the wind. Believe me when I say the effort you put in at the start is worth it in the end.

I already talked about this in How to Write with Post-concussion Syndrome, so I won’t go into depth here, but the gist of it is to start with the big ideas – the tree trunk – and then expand into all the tree branches and leaves until it’s basically written itself. At that point, editing is more a matter of line editing rather than the developmental stuff which can be a little trickier to reorganize, and then have to actually change if it’s in a digital document. That right there, editing in a digital document, is the part I dread most.

So once you’ve reached the end, print yourself a nice double spaced hard copy and spare your brain from a backlit screen and get cozy with a good red pen, and an extra notebook at your side.

If you have a translucent gel or plastic divider (purple works best for me), lay that over your pages as you read, and then just move it aside for the edits. (The tint reduces the contrast between black and white.)

Keep Track of All Your Ideas

That notebook at your side is for all of those other random ideas that are going to pop in your head through this process. If you’re anything like me or the majority of people with an MTBI, your memory kind of goes to crap. So don’t trust yourself. Write it down, and then you can refer to it later.

This also works the other way around. If you had ideas come to you while you were writing for stuff that you had already written and jotted those down, it’s time to organize those chronologically. If your pages are single-sided, you can physically cut them apart to rearrange, or number them. If you’re stuck with the latter, it’s going to get messy. So another option is to just number them as they are written and then arrange those assigned numbers in chronological order to save yourself from rewriting things. Rather, you can just see that, for instance, 27 comes after 32, and can refer to it on your original notes.

Making the Changes

If you’re like me, you enjoy having your written work in a digital format because you can do a lot more with it at that point. When you have a PCS, however, it changes the game a little, but not entirely.

Depending on how much red pen is scribbled all over your original work, it’s up to you to make the judgment call whether it is worth editing the digital document, or just rewriting it with the changes in place. If you’ve only got a few sentences to rearrange, and some typos to fix, it’s probably worth the risk to edit the digital document directly. Hopefully you have filters on your screen and some decent blue light blocking glasses to get the job done.

If, however, your draft looks like Clifford the big Red Dog yacked on it, it might be worth considering just rewriting the dang thing from scratch either via dictation, or if you are lucky enough to have something like the Freewrite or another digital typewriter with a hard drive.

Take the Time It Takes, and Be Easy On Yourself

I know you want to get the damn thing done. We all do. But you’re not going to be doing yourself any favors if you push yourself too hard or too fast and push yourself back into worse symptoms. Gandalf knows I did that enough times. You might feel like you’re making progress at the time, but sometimes that set back can cost you weeks with zero productivity. You are much better off to keep the sessions short and manageable, and actually stop before the symptoms hit you.

No one’s harder on you than you are, so give yourself permission to take the time it takes. Goals are nice and all, but when you’re dealing with a brain injury, you have to take one day at a time. Start with baby steps, and you’ll be up and running when you’re ready.