PUNCH THROUGH

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, but rest assured I’ve been working. I finished the edits on my novel and had two beta-readers (thank you both!) read my stuff. Now it’s time to buckle down and rewrite the novel again.

This is the first time I’ve felt the gears begin to slip. Even though I’ve rewritten my novel quite a times—this is the first time where it’s becoming a slog. I can feel the resistance beginning to build and I’m having to force myself to keep going. Each rewritten scene is like dust in my mouth and I have to keep chewing.

As we’ve all read so many times, one key to doing anything is just showing up. Which is what I’ve done over and over. I keep showing up at the computer every day and going through the novel line by line. Each iteration seeming to only change slightly and the fact that at the end of it I’ll be throwing it into the void, where the most likely outcome is to be lost to time.

At this point the ultimate goal is just to get it done and start submitting it. There is no grand scheme or dream. Or if there is I can’t even really picture it. Only to be done with it. I want it off my plate for better or worse.

I’ve often wondered what keeps me going under these circumstances. Honestly, I don’t really know. Some sense that if I finish what I’ve started that I’ll somehow be satisfied—even if the past says otherwise. That satisfaction will be only the briefest glimmer and then the delusional perseverance will kick in again, and I’ll start another project.

In the end it’s partly that push that satisfies. The more I push the farther I’ve gone and the farther I’ve gone the more I know that I’m going farther away from what I don’t want (following that?). Which is basically mostly what I’m doing. Working at a job that doesn’t satisfy me. So even though the fifth edit of my novel is a slog. It’s a slog I can feel good about. I can know good or bad that it’s something I  did. I put my stamp on it and would choose that anytime over doing someone else’s work.

The words breath and live. The writing grows and becomes something else. As opposed to when I’m doing someone else’s work, which never quite fits. It always chaffs and grinds. 

So I’ll gladly cut my hand open and let it bleed on the page over and over if it means a few moments of freedom. A few moments of pushing out beyond the shore and feeling alone and scared. And once I’ve embraced this is when the real work begins. I know going in I’m probably going to fail. I’m probably going to feel horrible when it’s all said and done. But what else can I do? Numb the pain or embrace the futile march through each letter. I keep rolling on home.