It has been three month since I've posted and checked the site and time flys.  I have a good excuse though, I have been working my ---off at school.  Besides the writing and the working I am also pursuing my PhD in Anthropology\Women's Studies.  Finals, end of semester, writing, all of it takes up more hours than I have in the day.  And when I do have a free day to just sit and write, nothing seems to work.

I have created a bad habit.  I have been going back and editing my work and before I know it five and six hours have gone by without a single new word written.  Now in that time entire chapters and paragraphs have been changed, deleted and added, but I am no further than I was when I started!

I am driving myself crazy.  I try to remember all of the advice I have read and yet I open the book on my computer and before I know it I am reading it again from the beginning.

My boyfriend is in a band and he had some good advice today that I am going to try and take.  He said that he knows other bands that have gone in the studio to record a new LP and spent a year or more working on it because they go back and second guess everything they do!  But the more you do that, the less the song (or book in my case) sounds fresh and original.  It makes sense and I know this intellectually, emotionally I'm not so sure.  I want to polish every word until it shines.  But it's writing not science.  I want the raw powerful emotion that comes with unchecked passion.  Don't I???

I would be very interested in knowing other writers opinions on this subject.  When do you edit?  How often, what's your process?

Have a good night!

I cannot tell you how grateful I am for all of the support and encouragement that I have received from everyone here.  I am so glad that I found this site and such wonderful people who will read my posts and comment and really help me through the rough patches.  And I have to say that the lovely Volencia and her kind words helped me remember what this is all about and why I want to do this.  I know there will be times when I get frustrated, times when I want to give up, but those will be less often now I think.  She made me think back and what I remembered was that feeling I got when I finished my book.  I don't have kids so I cannot tell you with certainty but I think it must be a very similar feeling, I created something.  And whether or not anyone else thinks my baby is beautiful I think it is the most beautiful, perfect, baby book in the world!  I love my book and maybe part of that is that I love it because it brought me back to my dreams.  It is easy to lose yourself in the world.  It is easy to forget who you are and what matters to you.  Sometimes we have to make compromises, sometimes we have to change plans and sometimes we just lose our way.  That is the theme of my book and as I was writing it, the words flew from my fingers and I realized at about chapter ten that what I was writing was a letter to myself.  Inside was the lost me wanting to find my way home.  So she did.  I finished the book, read it and while editing it, I realized that I also needed to edit my life.  My main character is me, but I am not my main character.  Does that make sense?  I mean that she has a lot of my conflicts, my concerns, but in her I was able to rise above them, to fix them.  The thing was I didn't even know that I had these problems until I saw them on paper.  It was the best therapy that I could ever have.  The process of writing is something that I could never describe to anyone else, when I talk to people who don't write they think I'm crazy.  But I don't know where half of what I write comes from.  I remember being halfway through my book and my Mother asked me how it was going and I said great and I told her about what was happening and she said "Well what happens next?"  And my answer without thinking was "How would I know?"  She looked at me like I was nuts, but it was the truth.  Until I sit down at the keyboard I have no idea what it going to happen.  I make plans I say I am going to take A to B to C and then off my characters go on adventures I never even imagined.  My point here is that life is the same way.  You never know what is around the bend waiting for you.  You never know what surprises are in store.  But even if I never sell that first book I am glad I did it.  In a way it is a primer for my life.  I got a lot out of it, did things I might not have done before it, met people because of it.  It was all worth it.  Thank you to everyone