Writers don’t write as much as they edit.
It’s a odd statement but it’s also true. When I’m really writing, I’m basically spewing the story out onto the page. I love that part, constantly playing a game of what if, knowing that I have to get these people to do certain things and then wondering why they don’t do them, and trying to figure out how to get them back on track.
But after the story is down, there’s still so much work to do. The editing. I reckon I take 4 to 5 times longer to get a book edited than to write the thing in the first place. The editing is all about getting the story right. Making sure that it flows, is sensible and everything works. It’s polishing the sentence structure and ensuring that the correct character does what they need to when they need to do it.
Then it’s running through the various writing checkers for spelling and grammar and all the other technicalities. Only then can you send the manuscript out.
And it it’s accepted, it will invariably come back with more edits to do. Writers write, but they spend an awful lot of time editing too.
The Write Route 