When Editing Takes Over

Last time I talked to you about how my inner editor had escaped, and how I was planning to catch her, put her back in her cage, and make sure I locked it this time.  I swear that was my intention.  I was going to do it.

I'm not sure what happened, to be honest.  I had the cage open, the editor in hand, and I was really trying to get her back in the cage...and then she was gone again.  Slipping away as if I had never caught her in the first place.

Here's the thing, though, I've never had a great relationship with my inner editor.  Okay, so actually I had a great relationship with her.  I just shoved her into her cage and forgot about her.  I never checked on her.  Hell, I don't even know her name.  It was the perfect writing relationship.  She never got on my case, so I could just keep writing all of the time without having to worry about it.  I was even able to leave those little red lines under the words alone.  At least, I was until the end of the word war.

It was fantastic!  So, what happened, you ask?  Simple.  I let her out.

I decided it was high time I did some editing.  July was always supposed to be an editing month for me, so when the betas didn't get back to me, I had a very cranky editor bitching at me every day about how this was supposed to be her time.

So I gave in.  I pulled out the other novel I happened to have finished (don't give me that look, it's the one I wrote in June...) and started the edits on it.  You might have heard me ranting...um...I mean discussing...the fact that there were going to be some major rewriting going on with the novel.

I was actually looking forward to it, which I'm starting to think may have something to do with how often I leave her locked up.  Honestly, more than I really should.  Even when I'm editing I'm not really consulting her.  I tear through it and don't fix most of the problems.  It's not a good way to edit, and as a result I've never gotten  a novel to the point that I can actually say I was happy with it.

Now, though, my inner editor seems to have had enough.  She's battened down the hatches, and she intends to stay for the long haul.  Which means, she wants me to edit.

Of course, now all I can think about is the book that I've been editing.  My writing has gone absolutely no where in days, despite my decision to hold off on the sequel I was writing in order to finish editing the first book.  I stare at the screen for hours instead of doing anything productive, all because I keep trying to put her off.

Maybe I need to give in to her.  I write enough during the year that maybe right now I need to get down to editing.  I need to focus on this novel that could be the first one I publish (if anyone is willing to take on another werewolf book...).  Maybe I shouldn't keep on ignoring her, even when she's yelling in my ear.

I guess it's about time that I actually take my editing seriously.  That I finish editing a novel, step back and think, that's pretty damn good.  It's time for me to sit down with my inner editor and fix everything that's wrong with this novel

Hmmm...I wonder if my inner editor has a name?

Well, off to tackle the challenge of getting this book up to par!

August Is So Not My Month

When I signed up for Camp Nano this August, I knew that it wasn't going to be easy to get through it.  I had a busy month planned from the get go with a wedding to attend, a writers conference calling my name, a couple of birthdays demanding my attention, and all the random other little things that make up my existence.  It was going to be a busy month, but I was sure that I could power through it.

So, here it is, the fifth day of the month, and I'm TOTALLY powering through it.

Except that totally is a bit of an exaggeration.  And powering through should be more like floundering and wondering what the hell I signed myself up for this time.

Last year I did both sessions of Camp Nano.  I managed to finish July's, but August only managed to pull 17k words out of me before I was done for the month.  It's a sad story for me, the girl who can usually write upwards of 200k in a month, but it's what happened.

This year I thought I would be ready for it.  I had a plan for both months (last year I wrote a single novel between the two months, and never ended up finishing it because it was that bad.  They walked for the entire thing, and there wasn't nearly enough description for me to claim I was pulling a Tolkien, so it was abandoned.) and I was going to finish both of them, damnit!

Well, I got through June with 120k.  In fact, I finished the novel I was working on and actually started a second novel because I had time left over.  It wasn't anything that I planned, so it hasn't really gone anywhere, but I started it!  I didn't even write for the last week because I was having some serious computer problems.

After that, I thought that August would be a piece of cake.  Simple, easy.  I could blow right through it without even stopping to get gas or pick up another bottle of pop to get me through those last few kilometers.

Apparently I was wrong.  At the risk of someone hunting me down and killing me for saying this, I'm sitting at only 17,464 words written for the month.  (No, don't grab your weapons.  Remember, my goal is 5k a day, not 1667 that most nanoers go for.  I'm the crazy girl that doesn't understand the concept of writing less than 150k in a month....)  Which puts me firmly 8k below my current goal.  Adding in tomorrow's 5k that brings me up to 13k that I need to somehow make up.


Why am I not writing right now?  Now that's a funny story.  My inner editor -- the one that I have actually constructed a cage for that you wouldn't believe -- is screaming at me.  She escaped, you see, and she's determined to ruin my enjoyment of Camp Nano.


I've written nearly 6k today, all of which I am absolutely certain is crap, not to mention the rest of the 11k that was already done that I'm pretty sure should just be tossed in the garbage and forgotten ever existed.


With that frame of mind, I gave up on the idea of pounding out the last 4k that would have made catching up a little easier (especially with the writing conference next weekend...I'm never finishing this novel, am I?) I figure it's safer to take a step back today, spend tomorrow hunting down the damned inner editor once more and making sure the padlock is secured, then getting back to writing when I get back from the museum.


I hope everyone else's Camp Nano journey is going as well as they had hoped.  I can't wait to see the final counts at the end of the month.  I hope we beat June for how many people cross that finish line!


For now, I'm off to do some editor hunting.  If you hear screams, don't worry, I have it under control.