I was afraid this was going to happen, but I was hoping that it wouldn\u2019t. Once again, I am so behind on my book-publishing activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had it all planned out. I was supposed to spend 40 hours on editing. Nine hours on Saturdays and a couple of hours during the week until it was done. I didn\u2019t start on time, but to my credit, I did give it a try.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re wondering what I\u2019m talking about, I wrote a short story, almost 20 years ago, that I sent to, and was subsequently rejected by, The New Yorker. After that, I was one and done. I never tried to do anything with it again. Then in the last couple of years or so, I found a printed copy with the first few pages missing. I read what remained and liked it, so I came up with the bright idea that instead of trying to get someone else to publish it, I\u2019ll just publish it myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It goes without saying (but I\u2019ma say it anyway) that there\u2019s a long way between deciding you want to self-publish a book (or in my case, novella) and getting the story into people\u2019s hands. That\u2019s right into people\u2019s hands, because this will not be an exclusively online or reading device book. Damnit I like to dog-ear and turn the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My first step was seeing if I could retrieve the full electronic copy from an old, broke down computer: done. Next, I need to edit the story. I started doing that about a week or so ago, and I must say, I was not impressed with the first few pages. I didn\u2019t like my voice there. I felt that at times I was trying to be too literary. Plus I found a part that had a lack of continuity; I just jumped to the description of something else without explaining how I got there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s worse, I wrote this thing so long ago, I don\u2019t even know how to bridge the gap. I mean, I guess I could come up with something, but I really wanted to stay true to the original intent, my original intent, so I was thinking that I\u2019m going to have to try and figure out what I was trying to say. What was in my head, that was accidentally left from the page. And that\u2019s frustrating because seriously, hell if I know, it was 20 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there\u2019s the issue of me getting bored reading it. I don\u2019t know what happened between the time I rediscovered it to the time I was rereading it to edit it, but all of a sudden it didn\u2019t seem like the genius piece of work it did before. It seemed like\u2026well, not quite crap, but pretty close to it. I thought to myself, if I can\u2019t sit through reading this, what makes me think anybody else will?<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s also the factor of my full-time job. I know there\u2019s plenty of people who have full-time jobs and write books, much less edit a short-story that\u2019s already written, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember a long time ago I was watching Charlie Rose (man, I loved that show. I mean PBS did the right thing by pulling him off the air, but I learned so much from that show) and he had this woman on who was the president of CNBC. She wrote like a murder mystery, I think it was. But the point is she wrote a whole book while having a demanding job and she got it done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s like they say, comparison is the thief of joy, so before I go down that rabbit hole, I\u2019ll just keep going even as I\u2019m way off schedule. I still feel compelled to complete this project. One way or another, that\u2019s what I\u2019ll do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was afraid this was going to happen, but I was hoping that it wouldn\u2019t. Once again, I am so behind on my book-publishing activities. I had it all planned out. I was supposed to spend 40 hours on editing….<\/p>\n