Holy fuck – I’m in the thick of it now. Deep in the weeds. Doing the work, trying to make my writing presentable to the world. See, the creative part of writing isn’t a problem for me, it’s the editing part that’s a killer.
But I’ve got some experience to fall back on, albeit in a different discipline. Music and writing don’t share much, but the editing phase is similar.
See, when you write and record a piece of music, by the time you’re ready to mix you’ve heard it so many times, examining every tiny detail, that it becomes this very dispassionate exercise. You lose all sense of excitement because, quite frankly, it’s a brutal grind to get it to it’s highest level.
In this sense, writing is no different. Flow, overuse of adverbs, sentence structure, correct punctuation, spelling, passive vs active voice, conjunctions, dialog, repetitive words, overuse of pronouns, length… The list just goes on and on.
It’s probably not quite as complex as music, but getting it to its final state is just as hard.
So I’m not really dismayed – I’ve been here before. This is what separates the men from the boys (I mean that in the most none-gender specific way possible).
So I’m overwhelmed but learning, which is a good place to be.
Here’s to realizing you suck, and the brutal hard work it takes to get better. I’m still growing at 63.
It’s pretty fucking cool.