The Hard Part

Writing is easy. 

I just wrote that, see? Easy. Thought to fingers, it spreads out from a word or two to a sentence to a paragraph to a story, and there you have it.

The hard parts come next. 

Second guessing each sentence - is it good? is it clear? is it interesting? is it needed? 

Editing can be painful - line up all your children and decide which one is worthy to stick around for a bit. Which one will be culled for oblivion. Which one is not smart enough, not cute enough, not funny enough. Which one works too little? which one tries too hard?

(Maybe that's a bad example 'cause if I had 100K kids it may be easier to kick some out.)

And then, the whole selling thing. 

Chapters is a lie. Not really but try to follow me anyway... When I go into Chapters there are all of these rectangular objects that SING to me "Pick me! PICK ME!" It's not quite as bad as the SPCA cat room but close. What you don't see is the behind the scenes selling to get them there... The author had to sell the story first. 

1. To him/herself - is it good enough? If you think so, zip back a couple of paragraphs and see how that works out.

2. To an editor - is it good enough? And here's the tough part, the editor's job is to say "Well, not quite here, here and here," without handing the author that tiny bottle of WIP poison.

3. To an agent / publisher - is it good enough? Cause they're the ones that make it into that rectangular object in the first place. And they have a bazillion options besides that one story. 

4. To the readers - is it good enough? Even after a story is published the marketing and promoting is just beginning. Remember Chapters with the thousands of books screaming "PICK ME!"? how do I make my book sing loudest? 

Writing is easy. I sit at my desk alone with my cat and my diet Coke and push the thoughts from my head to my fingers and the story appears. I like the quiet, the solitude, the safety. But then I have to scrutinize it without squashing all the confidence with it. And once it's out there I have to find a way to yell PICK ME above the crowds, and drawing attention to myself on purpose? Not quite part of my introverted bio. That's where the hard work starts.

N