What does it mean to Edit?

Do you remember when I said that writing a novel in a month was most effective at producing lots of raw material? I knew that before I even began to look over the book, that lots of it would be crap, and some of it would have fabulous potential, but I'd have to dig through and find the good stuff? The small bits that I've edited have felt like panning for gold. I scoop up a whole lot of the stuff that I wrote in the first draft, swish it around in the sieve with some water, and almost all of what I wrote disappears.

Actually, it doesn't disappear, I have to delete it after I realize it sucks, and must be redone. Which isn't as bad as it sounds, though I would have jumped off tall, tall things if someone told me that halfway through writing the rough draft. Sheesh.

I haven't edited a whole hellava lot of the book, yet, to be honest. It's a terribly daunting task. And as a stubborn neophyte who just wants to figure it out on his own, I don't know if it would be better to hand my manuscript over to a professional editor, do a least one edit and then hire a pro, try and edit on my own? I feel like a new born calve, knees buckling, covered in shit, thinking "One step at a time? One step at a time? Mother fucker what the hell is a step!"

So the editing has been interesting. Mainly, it's consisted of me taking each scene, almost completely rewriting it, and liking it much more than what I wrote at first. But then I worry about the little things I left out. I let my friend Gabriel read the rough draft, and when he read one of the revised scenes, he burst out, "But what happened to that exchange! I really liked that part!"

Mostly, I wonder how different the last draft, hopefully something that gets sold somewhere, will be from what I originally wrote. It makes me wonder how different all first drafts are, and appreciate how nice it is to get first tries, at things, and even more how wonderful it is to go back and first what's wrong, or what doesn't work. Lemmings don't get to do this. And a little piece of me hurts for them.