After months of only creeping, inching progress on my rewrite, I’ve finally managed to stitch together two parts of my book with all-new material. Writing the all-new stuff was like pulling teeth; the words often flat-out refused to come.
I hate when writing is like that.
Nevertheless, I pushed through it. I’m fairly certain that most of what I wrote is rubbish, but that’s what revising is for, right? Polishing up the parts you don’t like?
At long last, I’m back to the polishing part. The writing is going much more smoothly now that I’m in full-on polishing mode. Still, part of me can’t believe how bad some of what I’d written is. There are parts that are positively purple; they remind me of the steady diet of soap operas I consumed as a teenager. There are parts that just don’t read quite right, for some reason; they have me in agony as I can’t quite figure out what’s wrong, never mind how to fix them.
And then there are the parts that just make me cringe, like whole-body, might-possibly-be-mistaken-for-a-seizure-type cringing. People’s Exhibit A: the two-paragraph section where I started four consecutive sentences with the word he. Talk about an epic facepalm moment.
*cringe*
*groans*
*cries*
For the most part, I love writing. I love the act of writing, the sheer physical quality of my pencil scratching out worlds across the paper; I love rewriting and making things shine. But at the moment, I seem mired in the depths of suck, where everything is hard and it’s not looking to improve any time soon. Maybe it’s because I’m exhausted and stressed about things other than writing; maybe it’s because I’ve been working on this story for ten years and I don’t feel any closer to finishing it now than I did when I started it.
Whatever the reason, I’m ready to be overwhelmed by the joy of writing again. It’s been a long while since I’ve experienced the euphoria of having written something that you know in the marrow of your bones is good. It’s addicting, that feeling.
I know I’ll find it again, but when everything else is so gray, too, it’s hard to bear that in mind. In the meantime, thank goodness for things like this:
If you’re worried about not being good enough? Hey, let’s remember, I wasn’t good enough for 17 years. (If you read some of my negative reviews, then ha ha ha, oops, I’m still not good enough.) … Keep at it. Eventually you’ll knock over that brick wall if you commit to the vigorous act of endless headbutting. -Chuck Wendig
Check out the whole article here. It’s well worth the read.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the vigorous act of endless headbutting.
*grabs economy-size bottle of ibuprofen*
*scampers off to writing cave*
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Last night, Seymour and Bubbles spent the remaining light of day playing catch out in the yard. Cricket, not one to be left behind, was desperate to go outside and join them. I snapped this as he was hurrying through getting his shoes and coat on. He was so excited that I had to be quick with the camera if I wanted to capture even a bit of his joy.
We play cards in our family. Like, a lot. It’s kind of our family pastime. And we start ’em young.
Suddenly they all died. The end. 