Where the Rubber Meets the Road

There comes a time…

When one has read all the books one usefully can, gathering information that mostly won’t be used.

When one has made and consumed an unreasonable number of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and other forms of comfort food.

When one has cleaned the desk, cleared the decks, and even tidied up their browser bookmarks, but is finally stopped in procrastination, daunted in the face of fixing all the Tumblr tags.

When one has collected the maps and timelines, hammered out the myths and legends, and nicknamed all the gods. Gathered up the highlighters and the colored pens and the post-its and the sticky flags.

When one has picked the brains of any and all acquaintances who might be of assistance, luring them near with promises of baked goods and pestering them with vague explanations of half-imagined magic rules to try out options.

When one has spent entirely too much time staring at the manuscript before one, before wandering off to make one more PB&J and ponder the makeup and properties of the human soul over a glass of milk.

When one has done all these things, but especially the devouring of the PB&Js, there comes a time when one must dive in or give up. When procrastination runs headfirst into “There’s no time!” and one must either take the leap, or let the leap take them. (what does that mean? I don’t even know.)

Friends, I am at that point. The pressure is high, the expectations higher. Does it make it easier that all the pressure is coming from me? Not at all. I need to make this book amazing. And while I’ve always had a high level of faith in my muses, they have not been terribly reliable of late. Along with that fact, there’s been a decided lack of cooperation from them forever. It’s been years since I wrote about throwing bricks at them, but I do remember that was a “good” project, muse-cooperation-wise.

So I believe in them–but I’m worried. Maybe they don’t believe in me anymore. Maybe it’s me who’s been letting them down an awful lot these last few years.

But as Eve Marcori would say, the only way out is through. So I’ll charge forward, waving my sword and hoping the words flee into shape before me. Duck my head, shout like a berserker, and chase the storm troopers.

And through it all, I’ll try to remember that I love writing, and editing makes my writing better.

Editing makes my writing better.

I know it to be true, but I don’t know it. I’ll just keep repeating it until I do.

Editing makes my writing better.

Editing makes my writing better.

One Comment:

  1. Yes! Channel Eve, and go go go go go! *waves all the sparkly rainbow pom-poms*

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