Onward Editor

Lately, I feel like I’ve read my dratted story so many times, if I do it one more time, my eyeballs will bleed.  But during one of my insecure, lack of confidence, what-a-waste-of-time-when-this-thing-goes-nowhere editing days, something neat happened. 

Let me set the stage.  I’m a voracious re-reader.  If I like a book, I’ll read it again a few years later, and if it’s really good, there could be multiple repeats.  Of course, after the first time, the end is not a mystery, but during the time between reads I forget the details.  As a result, a good book can suck me in the second, or the fifth time as well as a book that’s new to me—to the point that little gets accomplished in my life until I’ve turned the last page.

So here I was last week, reading/editing my own darn work in progress for what feels for the millionth time, hating a lot of it to tell you the truth, when I arrived at a critical scene and got hooked.  Imagine that.  I mean, I wrote the thing, right?  Trust me, I knew what happened next.  But, yep, as I approached the climax of the story, I didn’t want to put it down.  And then I had to put it down, had to dash to the bedroom to change my clothes, to skedaddle to work— arriving at work late because I didn’t pull myself away soon enough.  For the rest of the day, while I sat in our crowded office editing a newsletter, I kept thinking about my own story— the one I’ve read so many times.  I couldn’t wait to see HOW I wrote what I knew was going to happen next.

When I got home and picked it up again, the story was as compelling as earlier in the day, the red pen saw very little action, and I learned something.

Regardless of what happens to this dear book of mine, it’s not a waste of time.  It’s hard work, and there is a whole lot more of that to come.  But I'm developing and growing as a writer. 

And now that I've managed to excite that nasty little second-guessing critic who dwells deep inside of me, I'll admit to a minor victory.