memes and schemes of more first draftings

I’ll be honest. Sometimes I spend time on Pinterest looking for memes that describe my feelings about writing rather than face my writing. It’s therapeutic. In fact, I have a whole writing board on Pinterest which I’ve named “Theiyr’re!” It’s mostly funny grammar memes, things like, “I like cooking my family and pets. Use commas. Don’t be a psycho.” I have a similar board called “Write Brained.” It contains additional entertaining writing-related memes such as, “Synonym: a word used in place of one you can’t spell,” as well as the occasional legitimate writing tool – a color thesaurus, writing prompts, world-building guides. Things of that nature.

Yeah. I self-distract. Because writing is hard. And, as I’ve learned over these last few months, editing is harder. It’s been six months since I finished the first draft of Tiny Shadows, and I’ve all but thrown my hands up in the air and declared it a disaster. I’ve taken Pinterest breaks. I’ve thrown a couple tantrums. I’ve even started up World of Warcraft again. (Yep. I’m a Druid.) It’s not that I want to give up Tiny Shadows. I feel it really has potential – I’ve felt that all along. But, wow. Wow, is editing hard. And time-consuming. And let’s be honest, pretty soul-sucking.

So I pin. I have tantrums. I play WoW. And of course, I plot.

There’s this urban fantasy that’s been swimming around in my brain for a while, begging to be explored and told. Exciting me, nagging at me. It’s sort of a continuation of Tiny Shadows like twenty years into the future, so in a way, I feel as if writing it wouldn’t exactly be cheating. Right?

So, what do I do? There doesn’t seem to be a right answer. Drag myself through the mud for, what, another six months, to achieve a first edit on a story I feel lukewarm about at this point? Or move on, to yet another new genre, yet another new story, that probably won’t get properly edited when it’s done, either?

Maybe.

What’s it all about? The dollars? I’ve come to terms with the fact that I probably won’t ever be selling books for a living. It’s a full-time job, being a writer,and I can’t afford to quit the day job (which I actually sort of enjoy) long enough for authoring to become a reality. (I mean, I have a child to feed, even if she only eats chicken nuggets at the moment. Those don’t grow on trees, you know.) The fame? I’m a die-hard introvert who avoids eye contact with my neighbors if I see them leaving their house at the same time one too many mornings per week (one too many being two). The satisfaction?

Well. The satisfaction.

If it’s about the satisfaction, then selling books isn’t my answer, either. My answer, then, is writing them. Crappy as they may be. At first.

Clearly, the crappiness factor is becoming more bothersome. Maybe editing the next one will be easier, and the one after that easier yet. That’s how it’s gone so far with writing the dang things. Ten books in, I feel like I can write a book in my sleep. Nine more attempts to fix those books, maybe I’ll feel the same about editing.

So where does that leave me? I guess it leaves me planning O Negative. Writing O Negative.

And eight more after that.