A spoonful of sugar helps the editing go down

Don't get me wrong - it's not that I hate editing.  On a good day I enjoy it almost as much as writing.  On a bad day, when I'm going over something for the twentieth time, absolutely sick of reading it but realising with a sinking heart that it could do with more work, I come close to hating it!  But even on the best of days writing is still more fun.  Today was not one of the good days.  I was working on a passage that I found frankly boring (even though it was about me - the most fascinating subject in the world! Well, to me, anyway.)  I was trying to work out how to make the section more interesting while also working out the ratio of positive to negative content.  I was so fed up it's a wonder I made myself stick with it.

But here's my little secret.  I had made a deal with myself that I could do some writing AFTER I had done some editing, as a reward.  Mary Poppins would have been proud.  But in despair at the size of the chapter I'm working on (there's always more to say about me!) I have banned myself from adding to it.  This is where having two blogs going is so great.  I can get rid of some of that creative energy doing those.  I have another rule that says I must write the blogs very quickly so they don't take too much time away from 'real' writing.  But that doesn't make the prospect of free, unbridled writing any less enticing.  And even though there's only me to enforce them, not some burly bloke with a big stick standing over me, I actually keep to the rules.  So now I'm enjoying writing this blog with a warm, virtuous feeling after ploughing through a section of editing that got me a little further with the actual book.