(Trigger warning: Footnotes below)

The first stages of a novel — the writing — send my heart soaring. Discovering my characters’ quirks, finding their voice, finding MY voice, inserting moments of foreshadowing … it’s like a primitive ritual that spins into communion with Erato*.

Maybe I exaggerate. At any rate, creating a new world with new characters and new surroundings thrills me. I want to talk about writing with my husband, my friends, and anyone who will listen, all of whom react with “that’s nice” while they wonder if I’ve kept up with my lithium**.

Editing, on the other hand, feels like an exorcism. Looking through the draft for demons hiding between the sentences, suffering from boredom because there’s eighty thousand words to look through, and then finding something that doesn’t look like it should be there and wondering if it’s a demon or a cute cuddly spotted owl.

Or another extended metaphor with a side of simile: Editing feels like popping pimples — gross but necessary***. The great thing about this metaphor is that it has a happy ending: there is a certain satisfaction to popping pimples****. I’m not going to extend this metaphor any longer because — gross.

I’ve been editing for several days ***** and I can vouch that the extended metaphors are true to a point: I’ve read pages and pages the past several days with the following simultaneous charges: Make sure you take out that experimental technique the last agent who rejected you told you to take out. Make sure things still make sense from the previous changes. Make sure everyone’s still in character. Make sure the story captures people’s attention — how do I know what catches people’s attention? I’m weird. All of this while maintaining that people should be interested in agricultural back to earthers vs corrupt ag concern only with visions, Gaia-given powers, and a December-May love affair.******

But oh, when I fix something and I feel it’s right — which isn’t often —  it’s so satisfying. Like popping — eww, gross!

* The ancient Greek muse of erotic poetry/lyric poetry. Why Erato? Because the ancient Greeks appeared not to write prose. None of the other muses worked — Urania, honestly?

** Lithium is the gold standard for treating bipolar disorder, particularly the manic/hypomanic stages. Currently, my lithium is trying to kill me with side effects mimicking acute toxicity, and I’m trying to get my shrink to see that my lithium is trying to kill me.

*** Dermatologists like Dr. Pimple Popper — not kidding! — would prefer you let them pop your pimples at exorbitant prices.

****  If you don’t believe this, Dr. Pimple Popper’s videos have almost 8 million views on YouTube.

***** when my lithium hasn’t been trying to kill me

******I meant “December-May”. She’s 50; he’s 20. I like making you uncomfortable with things like older women and younger men.