When I wrote my first book, writer’s block hit me at every page. I would write, cross out, write again. Eventually, hours later, I would end up with one “perfect” paragraph. By the time I finished that page, the paragraph would have been changed three or four more times. I could not move forward because I was too busy making it perfect.
This was going nowhere so I decided a change of venue would help. I took a trip to Luxembourg City where I wrote early in the day, played tourist, and then wrote later in the evening. It helped but I still got stuck in my own perfectionism. I sent an email to a friend who is a copy editor and asked her what to do. “Writers write and editors edit” were her words of wisdom. It worked. I started writing, paying no attention to perfection, just putting all my thoughts onto paper. Little by little a book began to emerge. It started to come faster and faster and soon I could not type as quickly as my thoughts. The dam had broken.
After completing the book, I changed hats and went back to editing, but by then I had lots of material to work with. My train of thought had not been interrupted by “does this sound okay?” “can I make that less complicated?” and because it had not been interrupted, lots of extra ideas came to light. I completed the book ahead of the deadline. It was published and book two began.
My second book danced out of my head and onto the page in leaps and bounds. I could have written it twice in the time it took to write the first one. Writers write.
So, I ask myself, what is happening with my third book? Why has it sat on my computer for eight years? True, the first two had a publisher defined deadline and book three is on my time table. True, the first two were more like text books and book three is more like a story book – texts are easier to write. But the real reason is that I have been editing. I have been editing since I started this book, forgetting the words of wisdom that got me through books one and two.
Today I took out the parts of the book that bothered me, about 25,000 words. These are the parts that I kept editing and re-editing. My book has been cut by about 25% but what is left was done with free-flowing writing. Now I can stop being an editor and finish writing the rest of the book.