Editing Bound

Well, Nano is over for another year, and I once more find myself sitting in December wondering how I'm going to edit all of the words I wrote during November.  The answer, of course, is one book at a time.  I just wish I was faster at the editing process than I currently am.

Anyway, as I'm sure all of you noticed, my blog got a little bit of an update this week.  I (sadly) took down the donation link to nano (though if you would like to donate, just visit www.nanowrimo.org and you can definitely make the donationt here).  It will be back next year, though I won't be travelling to San Francisco in 2013.

You might also notice that I've added a 'goals' section.  This is very important, because I have a lot of goals for next year, and I'm hoping that tracking them here will make me focus on them a bit more.  Now, I didn't want to discriminate, so any and all goals I have will be making it into that section.  You'll see that getting Pandora submission worthy is first on the list.  What isn't there is getting it to Beta's by the 24th.  I decided not to add that, because technically the list is for 2013 goals, and that's still 2012.

I've actually started to continue reading through Pandora to get it edited (almost done.  On chapter 35 of 40) and I'm finding that there are actually some chapters that I enjoy reading!  This is shocking because I'm definitely my biggest critic.  I will sit there and rip my stuff to shreds, and then I hate putting it back together again.  I think this is why I don't enjoy editing as much as some of my friends do.  Anyway, the point is, I didn't find myself cringing during every chapter, and I think that means that maybe I'm ready to start raking in the rejection letters! (Let's face it, we're talking about a werewolf book.  While I think it's great, most places are going to tell me that it's a hard sell...)

Of course, I'm still waiting to hear back for the short story I submitted.  I'm not frantically checking every email, because I almost want it to take longer.  Every day I don't hear back is another day that I haven't been rejected, so I'm looking at it as a good thing that it's been over a month since the submission!

I'm slowly reorganizing myself to truly become serious about writing.  I always thought that last year I was ready for it, but I didn't even begin to be serious enough to truly make it as a writer.  I'm not quitting my day job just yet, but I'm going to crack down.  I'm going to follow through on my goals, and I'm going to be published.  Maybe not this year, but soon.  I have so many stories that I want to share with the world!

P.S. I have decided that, for now at least, the Sunday and Wednesday schedule is good for the blog, so I'm going to stick to that!

Being Productive

Normally I procrastinate so much that I don't get much done.  Especially when I'm editing.  I find it so hard to make myself actually want to start fixing and changing my story.  You all know exactly how much I love editing, of course, and I am very good at making sure I do everything but the editing that I'm supposed to be doing.

In a conversation with a friend this week (one B. A. Matthews) I started expressing my frustration with the fact that I'm really not getting anywhere with my stories.  That was when I realized something.  I can't be frustrated with not going anywhere, because the reason I'm not is because of all the procrastinating I've been doing.  It's not my manuscript's fault that I'm looking everywhere but at it.  It's not my characters' fault when they're constantly shouting at me about what they want to happen in the next book, or the one after that.  I can't write those stories, though, not when I'm not even done the first book.

No, there's only one person at fault in this whole scenario, and it's me.

I've been getting frustrated with myself.  I claim to want to write for a living.  To want to be a published author who is taken seriously and has a following, but how can I do that when I'm playing useless games on facebook instead of editing or writing?  How can I say that I want fans, when I can't guarantee that I'll be able to focus enough on the story in front of me to get it past the first draft?

So I'm making a new promise tonight.  I've done this before, I know.  I've committed myself to my writing more times than I can really count, but I'm still going to do it again, and I'm hoping to actually stick with it.

My first promise:  I am going to stop complaining about editing.  Especially on my blog.  I'm sure you're all as tired to hear it as I am to type it out.  Because, let's face it, complaining about editing is really just another way to avoid doing it.  And that's just a vicious cycle that I'll never be rid of if I let myself continue down that road.

My second promise: Get my manuscript out to beta readers by May 15th.  I currently have 2 beta readers anxiously awaiting (at least in my head) the arrival of my manuscript.  Having an actual due date, rather than an arbitrary goal, I'm hoping that I can actually do it.  I'm also still looking for a third beta reader.  If anyone's interested, please let me know.

My third promise: I'm going to go out of my way to try and find someway to like editing.  It may never work, but I'm certainly going to try.  I don't want to spend my entire life hating this part of writing, so I just have to look for that part of it that I like and latch onto it.

I'm hoping that I can keep these promises for longer than I've kept most of my previous ones (for the record, I have stuck with getting my blog posts up, but none of my editing/writing promises have been stuck to.)

Now it's time for me to start putting these promises into action.