On Editing

I participated in NaNoWriMo last November.  For those of you who haven't heard of NaNoWriMo before, it's pretty simple.  Write a 50,000 word novel between November 1 and 30, and you win.  What do you win?  The satisfaction of writing your very own novel (and some other little goodies...but mostly just satisfaction).  It doesn't sound like much, but anyone who has ever completed NaNoWriMo can attest to the amazing feeling you get when writing that 50,000th word.


Now it's been about a month and a half since the end of November.  I haven't touched my novel at all until this week when I finally felt ready to start editing.  Now, personally, I like editing a lot more than I like writing.  But I never imagined how hard it would be to edit something I wrote myself!  Even though it's been weeks since I last read my own novel, I realized that there's no way I am going to forget everything that happens.  So it becomes extremely difficult to predict how a reader might experience a plot twist or a new character, since as the author, I already know how they impact the rest of the story.


I don't really have any intent on making this particular novel publishable, so I'm not going to stress too much about editing; however, I'd like to get it to the point that I can let other people read it.  A rough copy of a novel written in 27 days is not exactly perfect ;-)


Have you ever written something novel-length before, or attempted NaNoWriMo?  What are your editing tips?