Better than Monday

Things I’ve said already today:

  • “You dropped a sock. I’m hanging it on your doorknob.”
  • “NOT ON MY TITS, DOG.”
  • “Clearly this fellow’s only experience of sex comes from Clive Cussler novels.”
  • “What’s the right time to tell your date about your barbed penis?”
  • “I’d read that for charity, but I’d need a LOT of weed.”
  • “No, Mary Berry wouldn’t be disgusted. She’d just be disappointed.”
  • “NOT ON MY BLADDER EITHER, DOG.”

As you can tell, it’s been A Morning. Tuesday is already better than Monday, though. I seem to have processed most of my less-than-ideal feelings about yet another revision in record time, and today’s going to be full of working that book into the ground. I finally know how to fix the major thing the editor wanted addressed, and can do it in a way that provides depth as well as the simple answer.

Being edited initially feels like having someone yell from the audience while you’re juggling chainsaws. You’re already working at capacity and some asshole has advice. It’s not the editor’s fault, they’re working to make the book better just like you are. Still, it initially feels not only like a judgment (and a particularly harsh one, at that) but a personal affront.

Getting through that shitty-ass feeling and into the headspace where you can take the advice calmly is part of a professional writer’s toolkit of necessities. Schedule in enough time to stamp your feet and scream, or, like I do, print out an edit letter, curse vociferously, and throw the thing across the room.

It’s surprisingly therapeutic, and calms one down wonderfully.

So. I have largely recovered from the most Monday of Mondays, and am even feeling philosophical about Thursday. (Mostly.)

Time for a run, and then I pick up the edit letter again and get to work.

Over and out.