I've finished the first draft of my novel and I'm currently at that bit in the revision process where the doubt weasels are gnawing at me and I'm considering jacking it all in to go and bake.
The problem is that when I write I love what I'm writing, its fresh, its new, its undoubtedly an outstanding work of staggering genius. If the novel in progress was a person we would be at that stage in our relationship where I'm name-checking it every three minutes, whether the conversation is relevant or not 'Novel likes ice lollies too!'.
But editing requires a completely different mindset. When your editing you have to 'kill your darlings'. And when your rewriting as well as editing (combining love of the project with a critical eye) well its a hard slog. Unlike when your writing a first draft and you can rely on the word count to keep you motivated, this is not much help when editing. Because you could have had a really productive morning and -1,4500 words. So instead I'm trying to rewrite for a solid hour. We'll see how it goes.
Anyway after wrestling with a mid point scene in which three characters intersect for the first time for most of the morning, I'm done. The sun is shining. Its a Saturday and The Boy is making neglected noises. We're off to the museum. The doubt weasels will wait til tomorrow.
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