YES, it’s true: after many moons of non-editing (most of which was for not-really-very-good reasons), this past weekend saw a burst of writerly action at last.
I think the kick in the pants that started this effort was a direct consequence of the writing workshops I’ve been going to at Old Firehouse Books up in Fort Collins. Those had the effect of getting me thinking about writing again, and I think it just went from there. The most recent workshop was last Tuesday; by Friday evening I’d decided that I was definitely going to do some editing work on The Artemis Device on Saturday morning. But unlike similar decisions in the past, which had been made a bit half-heartedly, this time I meant it. No, more than that — I was itching to get busy, for the first time in months. I was actually looking forward to it.
You read that right: Looking forward to editing, of all things — the part of writing a book that many writers truly detest.
Well, there were a couple of distractions (for one, I have a regular Google Hangout call with family on Saturdays, and I didn’t want to miss that). But despite that I got past the hurdle in Chapter One.
Let me explain: there was a sentence in Chapter One that my copy editor had marked up requesting a change. But I wasn’t able to fix it. Every time I tried to work on it, I’d stare at it without a clue what to do.
Saturday I solved the problem. Here’s how: I ignored it. Went past it to the next mark-up, and dealt with it. Then the next. And the next. And then on Sunday I moved on to Chapter Two.
Only when I was done with Chapter Two did I go back to that first killer hurdle, the one that had been such a problem. By then I had momentum. I had confidence. My Vorpal Keyboard went snicker-snack, and the Sentence Of Doom fell. Success!
That was enough editing. I’m still rusty at the process and it’ll take a little while to get back to being able to edit for five, six, seven hours at a stretch, like I used to.
But I still had some writing left in me. I updated my WiP page. I wrote a couple of short posts on Google+. And of course, right now I’m writing this.
Today, after work, I did a little more editing. And the plan is that tomorrow I will finish the editing of Chapter Three. But if, like today, the day-job gets hectic and I’m not able to finish it, that’s ok. If I can only spend even ten minutes on it, I’ll be happy — because ten minutes of progress is better than no progress at all.
I might even write some more tonight; I have a couple of other projects in the works that I could spend time on. One needs some outlining work, the other, a read-through and maybe the start of a rough timeline.
But first, dinner. All work and no food makes Pete a hungry boy.
Until next time . . .
Pete Ford 