Editor Dan, who I will now refer to as The Taskmaster, is taking me through the manuscript revision slowly. The first 40 pages became 100. Now I’ve only 20 pages to work on—the first chapters of Part II—but it feels like looking up at Mount Everest.
I keep thinking: non-fiction would be so much easier. Easier to describe the dead than to try to bring them back to life.
Once again, I’m somewhat at a loss where to begin, how to begin. One consolation of experience is that I know that once I do, I will feel much more at ease.
Temptation: coffee. I must resist (I’ve given up caffeine); I’ll console myself with breakfast popcorn, the perfect anxiety snack.
Lucky you, Susan. Do you feel the same way about rewriting beginnings?
I think my problem is stopping: if I never stopped writing, I would never suffer that rusty engine feeling.
Always interesting to hear about other writers writing. Personally, I like beginnings: they're like a first date or an exciting trip, with everything new and fresh and full of possibility. The characters are waiting to be explored and sent off onto their plot-ly course, and my imagination is full of research to be woven into the story. It's later that things slow down for me, when I realize I STILL have another 80,000 words to write, and where exactly are they going to come from? *g*
Good luck with wrestling that new book, Sandra – I know it will be worth the battle!
Erika, about "something in the air"–perhaps it's summertime blues.
Interesting, Erika. (I haven't given up decaf — but in giving up caffeine, I've discovered what a punch it has when I very occasionally indulge.)
Yes, I Made It So. :-)
but oh, to be remembered as one who raised the dead, rather than one who wrote obits ;)
There must be something in the air. I've seen many posts like this on recent writer blogs. It helps to find comfort in numbers. :)
Oh, and what about decaf coffee?