apostasy and confession

so.... it's been a while. again. i have no idea who still reads this blog. lord knows i'd stop looking for new posts if it were me. i'm going to do better, i promise. ;) have i promised that before? i'm going to have to look in my archives and see.

so here's the thing. i haven't been writing. christmas vacation in texas came up, then mom's visit, then a quick work deadline, then a break from work which i didn' take advantage of, now more work. i realized the other day that it has been almost two months since i wrote an original word. oh, i've been editing. yes, i have, almost every day. trading words for better words. correcting (i hope) grammatical mistakes. chopping up the occasional run-on sentence. you know what? that's not editing, it's an excuse.

i really do need to edit, though. when i started The Book, i had a rough idea of where i wanted the plot to go. that's it. i had three major plot points and a rather large group of main characters who i wanted to write about. now, i've got about 170 pages of rough draft, and 75,000 words. in december, it was already getting to the point that i had figured out that while my three major plot points remained, i needed some subplots and foreshadowing and whatnot. i became OBSESSED with the need to change what i had done already, to the point that i could no longer write forward. so i printed out my manuscript at the time, and started scribbling on it with a pen. didn't really do much else though. oh, i'd open word and open my files, but then i'd get distracted, or more honestly, i would avoid working on The Book. i told myself that if the files were open, i was working on it. snort. what an ass. anyway, i got depressed after that. someone told me they thought i had ADD, and i used that for an excuse for about a week -- i won't finish the book, i have ADD, i can't finish anything. i mean, i've never successfully dieted, why would finishing a book be any different? then i kicked myself in the ass because that is such a moronic excuse. writing is by damn sight a lot more fun than dieting, for one thing. so i got over the ADD thing, but then had more depression. every time i thought about editing the book, some really psychotic voice in my head would pipe up about throwing myself in front of a mack truck. that lasted for a bit. and then today, voila, i opened the fucking file and actually fucking edited. funny how when you tell your mind to shut the fuck up and just let yourself do what you need to do, life gets more simple. and more satisfying.

today, i decided to stop excusing myself and actually EDITED my first chapter, as in junked quite a bit of it and rewrote the sections i junked with my new ideas. i am VERY happy for several reasons. first, it felt so good to actually write again rather than just fiddle with words and phrases. it felt like sex after no sex for a really long time. ironically, other than sex, writing is the only thing i do that gets me completely out of my conscious mind. i know that doesn't make sense since writing requires quite a bit of 'higher' brain function, but that's how i feel. i really am one of those people who feels like they're in a fugue state when writing. i do my best work when i'm just sitting in front of the computer and letting it flow, out of 'my' control. second, i like the plot points i've foreshadowed and the bit of world building i've redone in this chapter. i have high hopes for my future editing endeavours, and for the first time in a while, i am actually looking forward to being able to write new chapters and finish the book. third, it's always good to have DONE something, rather than just thought about it to death.

and in celebration of this momentous moment, wherein i feel like i'm back on track and chugging along again, i'm announcing the working title of The Book. drum roll please. personal demons. wow. how anti-climactic.