The Sign Of Three

Getting back to writing and schedules after a month of loafing around with the family at the beach is hard. Part of me wanted to roll over at six this morning, throw the alarm clock at the wall, and sleep for three more hours. That's why my phone is my alarm clock, I'm aware of exactly how much that sucker costs and I'm not going to break it. Cheap alarm clocks die quickly.

A month away from everything - the gym, my schedule, regular writing sessions - means my hard won control and focus is gone. After thirty minutes my brain was switching from writing to breakfast. And even after breakfast I found my concentration was withering away. I got twitchy, opened a new browser tab. Then another. Then another.

That's my sign of three... if I have more than three browser tabs open I'm either researching or procrastinating. When I'm supposed to be editing the first 3-10k of a book today, that's not good.

I got up, I found more food because I was still hungry, fed the kids, started a load of laundry, got dressed for the day, double checked the gym schedule to find out what class I could make today... Somehow I convinced myself that I could shake off the frustration with this edit and come back enthusiastic.

I wandered over to Hey, There's a Dead Guy In The Living Room because Jeff Cohen is awesome and I love his books and the Dead Guys always have something good to say. They did. As always. And I remembered that the fastest writer doesn't always win in the long run. A rushed book is a rushed book, and sometimes what the book really needs is a slow simmer, not a fast boil.

Staring at a blank screen isn't working. Writing is the tip of the iceberg, the penultimate action, followed only by editing. The first step to writing a novel is coming up with an idea and then thinking it out. The same holds true with editing. Sitting down to stare at a messy manuscript won't work if you don't know what you're supposed to edit.

So... I'm making notes. Reading through. Trying to find what needs to editing and what was cleaned enough with the last edit.

Editing: It Never Ends