Editing the BOOK is the easy part

It's editing my thoughts that's tough.

No, there's no guarantee this book will sell. Yes, Heather, it'd be lovely if there were, but there isn't. No, we will not use that as an excuse to mess around on the Internet instead of editing. No. No, we won't.

Well, so what if it doesn't sell? Are you giving up?

Damn straight you're not. If you write the stories you love, then they're worth writing even if it's only you and your friends who ever read them. Hell, they might be are worth it even if you're the only one. Because you're learning all sorts of interesting things while writing them, aren't you? About yourself and how hard you can work, about how to keep moving when it doesn't feel good, about how to refuse to let 'it might not sell' into your mind.

Yep, those are good things. And I'm getting better at them all the time.

Today is the first real day of "Raoul"'s editing. (I should get used to calling it "Go Small and Go Home" but I still like Raoul. :) Yesterday I went through the list of changes I'd received from my great freelance editor and made the "comma here, no comma there" type changes. Today I started in on the big stuff. Top to bottom, making sure everything links up and the book is the best I've got.

Then it goes out to agents and I go back to work on the next one, keeping my thoughts focused in the right direction.

I love what I'm doing. I've never loved any job or career like I love writing.

"Success is loving life and daring to live it." (Maya Angelou, from a notecard pinned to my bulletin board)

I dare.