24 chapters for Book 1. 177K words. First edition locked. Second edition in progress. Up to now: 20/24 chapters locked after the second edition. What does editing do to me? Basically, I’m jumping back and forth between “I’m so good at this!” and “This sucks!” and “I’m gonna cry” and “This doesn’t make sense.”
And then falling into the eternal loop of “I’m never finishing this” and “maybe it needs a third, fourth, fifteenth edition pass.”
I’m at my summer house now, and we had a family dinner. A BBQ. As always, loud, full of people. I did some editing work in the background.
I didn’t really feel guilty for not participating in hollow talks. I usually have a good time, it’s not like I don’t enjoy them, but most of the time I feel like I’m obligated to be there, and not because I really want to.
But today I felt aligned with myself when I removed myself from the living room and just went to my room to continue editing and writing. It was like I wasn’t a people pleaser anymore. It felt really quiet. But in a good way.
I haven’t felt that in a long time.
And actually, no one told me anything negative about it, so it wasn’t such a big deal that I retreated. Good to know.
