The Slog

Because that’s what it is at this point. I’m following my editor’s advice. Editing myself until my eyes blur. Editing in my head as I lie unable to sleep. Though I’m antsy to get on with my book cover, the formatting, advance reader copies, and hopefully a blurb or two for the back cover… instead, I was standing at the bathroom sink the other night and realized that I had no idea what I’d been doing for the last five minutes because I was noodling about a problem with character relationships.

It keeps going through my head: “The novel isn’t going to write itself,” and “Nobody said it would be easy.” I’m reminded of a favorite quote: “Writing might seem a little bit hard when you start, but once you’ve written for a while you will learn that it is, actually, even harder.” C.G. Drews @PaperFury wrote that.

I will go through my MS until I just can’t figure out what else to do. Then I will send it to a few beta readers and ask them to answer some specific questions after they’ve read the story. Depending on what they come up with, I may go through the MS several more times. Then it’s back to my editor for one more round of editing. And undoubtably, I’ll then go through the MS again… but it’s not like I could do otherwise.

I’m obsessed, I admit it. On the upside, during my long professional life I’ve concluded that the people who turn out to be the very best—are obsessed. I do have doubts, however, that obsession is a healthy lifestyle option. Anyway, it’s not a matter of “I should” be putting maximum effort into my novel. I don’t have a choice.

Robin Williams said of artists, “You are going to come to the edge and look over, and sometimes you are going to step over the edge, and then you are going to come back, hopefully.” So, obsessed with a splash of balance, please. That’s the aim. Therefore, I use the big ‘D’ word (discipline) to get up early, hang with the cats, go outside and gaze at the beautiful forested mountains around here, fret about the work left to do on my old sportscar, act silly and enjoy my wife’s laughs, eat healthy food, read, workout… and then, of course, always end up with butt in my office chair before my monitor indulging my obsession at the scheduled time each day.

And that’s as it should be, because The Slog is every bit as important as the rest of it. If the words, sentences, and phrases don’t shine, what does the cover matter? How else will I get those great cover blurbs? If I want to have a chance that my first novel will not only sell, but impress, between the covers it must offer dialogue that delights, description that paints moving pictures for the mind, moments that evoke strong emotions, and maybe even inspire a new perspective. We get just one chance to make a good first impression, and when it comes to writing a novel, The Slog is what it takes to make a good first impression. Besides, as my obsession would have it, once the novel is out there, I must know that I did my absolute best.