Once again I’m staring down the path at the finish line. This time is a little different for me because it is not part of my Misfit McCabe series. I have been working on a stand alone middle grade novel, which is contemporary with magical elements. My problem as I stare down the path toward the finish line is I’m afraid things are going too smoothly.
I know that may not sound like a bad problem to have, but for me it is. When things go too smoothly, and I find myself speeding along during the revision process, doubt creeps into my head and I fight with the question of what I’m missing. Is it going smoothly because I’m missing the whole chunks? Or *horrors* have I committed the unpardonable sin of falling in love with my own work? While it’s good to enjoy your own work, if you’ve fallen in love with it, you are blind to its faults, which is deadly during the editing process.
I have become even more distractible than normal (and that’s saying a mouthful) and find that I have started to avoid the revision/editing process. I need the reminder that there is really no finish line, because although I may finish or at least think I have, the manuscript will then need to go to my trusted readers who will pick it apart and send it back to me, so I can start the process all over again. So that being said, I should probably quit procrastinating by writing this post, settle my mind, sit my writerly butt down, and head down revision road.
I get where you’re coming from, but I’d like to offer a slightly different perspective. I don’t think falling in love with your work is an unpardonable sin. I think you have to fall in love with it in order to do the real, painful work of cutting away at it until it’s is good as it can be. Sure, there may be a honeymoon period where you think your lovely darling can do no wrong, but when that love deepens, you’ll see it’s flaws and love it anyway, and then you’ll knuckle down and give it the tough love it needs.
So I think it’s okay, even if you think you’re a little blinded to its flaws at the moment. Your betas will set you straight if they see you’re in a destructive relationship.
As always you are oh-so-correct.
Oh, ack! I wrote “it’s” for its! ~crawls away in shame~