IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Or, Edit My Novel With Me: Pt 3.

Edit my novel with me, Pt. 3 (very sloppy 3)

“It’s not good enough,” I told Dhonielle Clayton yesterday. At least, I think it was yesterday. February usually comes and goes quickly, the pharmacy candy on sale even before Galentine’s day and then onto the next holiday goal post. But this month has felt like my own personal incubation chamber and I’m not ready for it to be over just yet. As much as I want to get on to the midterms, I have been fearing Sunday, March 1st because I am behind on my edits, and I’m behind on my edits because the book doesn’t feel good enough.

This is not a cry for her, for once, so let me ‘splain.

We all say that, I’m sure. “We.” Heh. My writer friends have a refrain that we throw around whenever slop gets rewarded, or adult readers complain there are too many words in adult novels. “We work too hard.” We work too hard on our metaphors, diction, plot, character motivations, whatever whatever whatever (I am listening to Shakira right now so it should be read as such). We work too hard on a book that 10 or 100,000 people might read. And as much as I’d like to say it’s because we’re hoping FINALLY that splashy six-figure deal and film interest and book boxes and book clubs will show up and bring their friends, I know we work hard because we care. If I didn’t care I would let go of my books after one edit pass and send them straight to copy edits. I want to stress this is no shade on writers who do, and please don’t take this as me saying you don’t care, as would be the twitter argument. Some people just write cleaner (as in proofreading) the first time. I, alas, do not.

Pinterest for REBEL ANGELS cover vibes I sent to my publisher.

How much I care, as well as me saying “we work too hard” will not magically transform my book into something readers want. But I know I won’t be happy with myself if I don’t give it everything I’ve got in that moment. The problem is, I have been running on fumes and deadlines are something I have to honor as I am on a contract. Deadlines can be moved, but that puts delays into my other projects, other payments, and honestly the 40 shiny ideas waiting for me to develop.

So when I told Dhonielle “It’s not good enough,” I finally admitted the thing I hadn’t wanted to since I started rereading through the 650 pages for what I call my “book audit.” I found places I over wrote, under developed, left out information that needed to be on the page, useless description that don’t add character or move the plot forward. And as per an edit note, I needed to get rid of a character halfway for pacing. My audit told me that I was still telling myself the story. If you’ve gotten an edit letter where something seems obvious to you but not to your crit partner or editor, it’s probably because you haven’t communicated to the reader.

Realizing this is hard. Painful sometimes. All that work. All that ink and paper (I have to print). All that stuff you thought you knew! Although, every time I see an author talk about using A.I. to “make this part easier” I literally cannot imagine wanting that. Neither my mind nor my spirit wants this process to be gentler. And I realized there is a huge possibility I could also just love the angst of being a writer. I need the suffering. I love the suffering, okay. (only a little). But as the writer, you know when something is fine, passable, three stars, it’s just still one step removed from what you’d truly imagined. It’s the house with exposed sheetrock. The next layer is currently going up, slowly but surely.

I have carried this book, my Rebel Angels book, for the last four years or so. From New York to Spain to Scotland to Ecuador to Puerto Rico to Mexico and then back. It consumes my thoughts when I’m not working on it. When I’m doing admin or cooking or reading for pleasure and research. I’m finally in my emersion part, which usually comes after the suffering.

I needed the frame in order to make it better. “Writing is rewriting” and all that. You think I would’ve learned by now, jesusfuckinchrist.

It wasn’t good enough, but it is getting there. It will be. And I can’t wait for you to read it.

P.S. Regular monthly posting will resume as soon as I turn in this book!