Constant Second Thoughts

Editing is a pain in the ass. Every morning, I get back to it and look over the previous page just to get my bearings. It is without fail that new errors and oversights present themselves each day, despite how carefully the pages were read the morning before. There are days when the whole process just seems overwhelming and hopeless.

I mean, I wrote a novel about pigs. Where the heck could that go? Besides, I've taken so long editing it, there's no doubt that my window of opportunity has closed by now.

Well, this weekend was definitely one of those times. My niece turned three, and my sister invited me down to celebrate. I packed up everything that would come in handy editing and headed down after work Friday. It was really nice to get away from Austin for a while, see my family and old friends. It was a lot of fun, but I got zero editing done.

My good friend Mary (she's working to be a teacher there in Houston) had invited me out for a couple drinks Friday night, and then Saturday Morning, we headed out to the Katy Mills mall (probably by favorite mall in the world). There is a really neat Asian decor shop there with a wall that's full of Chinese New Year stuff. I make it a point to hit that store every time I visit, and usually find something great to walk out with.

Well, I'd not gotten anything productive done all morning before meeting up with Mary, so doubt and self-admonishment weighed heavily on my mind. Mary and I had wandered through several stores before we got to that one, and I had just decided not to buy any more year of the rabbit or year of the pig stuff when she asked, "Did you see that they have a guitar playing pig?"

Sure enough, there on one of the sale displays stood a fat, jubilant boar in a suit and hat playing a mandolin with a gold earing in one ear. And, he was 30% off. A sign from the heavens? Is there still a shot?

So, Yesterday, I passed the 300 page mark, and only have 200 left to edit before the towel officially flutters to the floor. There have been two rewrites, three test readers, two full edits, and then this half-done polishing run. After this, it's done. Finished. Complete. Sure, there will still be a typo or two, I'm sure of it, but the book must be finished at some point, else I'll just edit it into oblivion.

I want to see this book published. Every effort has gone into making it as strong as possible, and even fate seems to offer encouragement. Intuition says, "Go."