Hurts So Good

Writing is for masochists. Normally, my mind would go straight to sadist instead, especially given the horrible, horrible things I've done to my characters in the last decade, but no. Masochists. And why are writers masochists? Because we're crazy enough to want to do this for a living.

Writing is evil. Rewrites are inhumane. And editing, oh editing. There's a special place in hell for editing. And an even darker place for professional editors. We could bathe a nation in the blood, sweat, and tears cast forth from editing. You know, except for the fact that it would be really disgusting. And an excellent way to torture one's characters.

I'm sort of writing, by sort of editing. I'm hoping that eventually I'll be really writing and then really editing. But for the moment, I'm still set apart from the whole thing. I haven't hit my stride. I'm not feeling that cannibalistic craze that hits somewhere between your first great paragraph and three chapters without stopping. It's a feeling that makes you want to devour your own work, regurgitate it, share it with the world, and devour it again. Like cows. Although, I'm pretty sure cows don't think of cud that way.

Right now, I'm really loving my work. I look at paragraphs or lines of dialogue and laugh. It's the best thing I've written in years. I want everyone else to read it. I fall asleep plotting future chapters in my head. But I'm not quite to the point of writing it down for real. Soon, though.

Then I'll be fierce.

Like the cows.


-Liz