If there is one thing I have learned over the years as a writer, it’s this: you can always improve your writing no matter how good you already are at it. I can’t tell you how many times I have taken my novels and revised them, going through every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence just to see how I can make the prose flow just a little bit better. It can be a long and tedious task at times, but it can also be very rewarding, especially when you see people read your work and become drawn into the story by the narrative style you’ve managed to come up with.

Of course, writing has also taught me a lot about life and the many intricacies that go into one’s development as a person. I have drawn many parallels between my efforts to become a world-class writer and the ways I have grown both mentally and spiritually, the most prominent one being how editing has become a metaphor for my progress toward obtaining a more divine nature as I progress through life. While this analogy might be clear to some, allow me to clarify it for those who need a little help understanding what I mean.

Editing is a practice by which writers take written works and fix any technical errors that may exist within the piece, whether it be related to grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Put simply, editing gives the writer the power to refine his work, making it more presentable and pleasing to read. Developing human character is not all that dissimilar to that of a manuscript an author would write as their first draft. It all boils down to experience as the writer engages in the process so he can learn what it means to be a writer, much like how we go through life, gaining experience as we interact with the world in order to learn what it means to be human. Then, after the author has written his rough draft, he goes through it and looks for the errors that need to be fixed in much the same way we tend to look back on our lives to see how our past behavior has impacted the world around us, forcing us to consider the ways we can change to become better people. And, just like the author who revises his work and repeats the process of reviewing it until the manuscript is perfect, we too can continue to evaluate our lives and make changes to it until our characters are as pure as the Divines’.

As mentioned earlier, the process can feel tedious at times, but the rewards for doing it can be many. Like the author who gains prestige and fortune from having produced a quality book that sells well, so too do we gain opportunities for growth as we build greater rapport with others due to our divine natures drawing more people to us. It all comes down to whether you want to put in the time and effort to evaluate yourself and see what it will require to improve yourself both as a professional and as a person to achieve your goals in life.