cogwrites:

if you ever get discouraged by the editing process, remember my mantra:
“you wrote a book. it might be dreadful, but you wrote a book. an entire book. it’s a bad book but it’s a book. it’s getting better. and you wrote a book. nice work.”

because that’s what the editing process is all about. turning that book that you wrote into a something that you can proudly show off to all your writing friends. eventually. it might take five or six or thirty editing processes, but you’ll get there.