Addiction

This morning I awoke with a sense of dread. I just finished the first draft of my second novel – meaning I finished a few weeks ago. Hundreds of the novel’s pages are stacked on my desk, out of order, with tons of edits and suggestions scrawled along the margins – products of writing group comments and various family reader-helpers. The book is about 10,000 words short and I didn’t have the foresight to organize it by chapter. Ick.

So what do I do? I take a long bath. Then I have a cup of tea with buttered toast and peach jam. I water the garden and dead head some dahlias. Then the novel starts pulling at the corners of my mind. I’m thinking of some plot threads that I left hanging. I’m thinking of a title that isn’t corny on the one hand or misleading on the other. I’m thinking of the characters, the poor schmucks I created and pretty much f—ed with for a year.

I don’t want to work on this novel today… but it’s in my head, bugging and pestering me and I understand why a lot of writers are drinkers. There’s a certain addictive quality to the whole thing, an inescapable seduction… a trap.

So before I know it, I’m sorting through the stacks of manuscript; I’m on the computer editing and bemoaning the errors and missing prepositions (my most common mistake), I’m scrolling through the document, checking for continuity, repetition, and little holes I can fill in with words to make that word count minimum….

Which is a good thing, because it’s what I want to do, right? Right? RIGHT?

What I’m Reading Now

 Julie and Julia by Julie Powers

 Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto

Suddenly One Summer by Barbara Freethy