Raise your hand if that part of The Shining scared you more than the ax-waving. But this is not about The Shining, it’s about my sudden realization that I fell into a common trap working on TGB. The “I’ll just put my life and everything fun on hold until the book is done” trap.
This is dumb and counterproductive. I realized I was putting off reading a book I really wanted to read because my book wasn’t done and…well. Why? Because I’m afraid I’ll suddenly start sounding like Lora Leigh? (I should hope!) The book is Elizabeth’s Wolf. I’m dying to read it. It is nothing like the book I’m writing and telling myself I don’t deserve to read for fun until I finish is beyond dumb when you’re talking about a task as big as a novel. Because unlike homework, you can’t finish it in a couple of hours and then go play.
I’m going to get that book and start reading. TGB will get done. It’s nearly there. It’s not perfect. It doesn’t shine the way I want it to. I still think it doesn’t have the oomph I want it to have. But I’m reaching the point where it’s time to stop fiddling with it and turn it over to an editor, who can provide fresh ideas and a fresh perspective on the work.
Meanwhile, I’m going to focus on having more fun when I’m not working, even if I’m not finished with a project. Because in this business, working is the rule and finished is the brief exception. I don’t mean to imply that writing isn’t fun, but trust me, a salvage job like this with extensive revisions is the worst kind of difficult writing on the planet. If the book wasn’t so damn good, I wouldn’t struggle through it. But this story is too good to abandon because I don’t want to do the work to fix it, and the work is paying off. I do need to energize myself in between sessions, though.
So tonight I will curl up with Elizabeth’s Wolf after I shut down and back up my work for the day.
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