My apologies to anyone who is annoyed with my continued documentation of my ongoing journey into the writing process. This is another one of those posts so feel free to skip it. Talking it out here is just my way of processing what I’ve learned.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve posted two more chapters to the guild site: Chapter Five, International House of Pain, and Six, Moving Targets.

The good news is that I’m getting into a routine. Chapter five was originally supposed to include the material in chapter six, but it was getting way too long. A friend recommended that I break it up in half and, after a great deal of reluctance, I did.

It was probably the best thing I have done yet. Over the past month or so, I had been thinking about how great it would be if I could post these things on a regular day and always stay one chapter ahead of schedule. So, for example, if I was scheduled to post chapter six, then I would be done with the first write up of chapter seven. Then I could take then next week off until I was ready to sit down and edit.

Edits have been my biggest problem to date. It takes me an excruciating hour just to pound out 500 words. By the time I’m done with an entire chapter, my brain is fried. If I try to go back over the material too soon to make edits, all I see on the page is “blah blah blah.” Seriously. So splitting chapter five into two parts actually worked out well for me.

But then I had a problem. The of chapter six was slated to be an action-packed chase scene that I had been noodling around in my head for the past month. As I’ve said previously, action scenes are really hard for me to write because I keep telling myself how bad I am at writing them. Yes, defeated before I begin!

I got half way through writing the scene three times, but they truly were all crap and ended up being deleted. It wasn’t true to myself and what I had in my head to write. The chapter was set aside so I could write up chapter seven.

On Wednesday, I edited the first three-quarters of chapter six, which was everything that I had so far since the ending wasn’t written. I’m happy with what I did there and I stand by what came out. It’s like Top Chef - you have to stand by your dish.

On Thursday night, I grabbed the laptop and started again with the dreaded chase scene. but didn’t have much time to work on it. Friday morning I got into work, ran down to the cafeteria for the biggest cup of coffee I could get (no sightings of the Coffee Nazi) and a yogurt that had fruit and granola to give you the illusion that you are eating something healthy, even though sugar is probably the #1 ingredient in it. When I got back up to my desk, I didn’t get up until the chase scene was finished, which was about lunchtime. By then, my brain was so fried that when I tried to go back over to edit, all I saw was “blah blah blah” all over the page. I tried doing some edits, but I was just burned out.

This morning I was too terrified to look over what I had done, but forced myself to look at a paragraph or two of the chase scene. What I read made me sad, because it is a skeleton of what could have been a good scene. When I wrote it, I didn’t savor it - it’s truly a first draft. I also fear that the sequences are a little confusing, but I can’t bring myself to do it over. Maybe I won’t look it over again. Something seems so narcissistic about re-reading my posts.

At least I’ve learned a very valuable lesson. I didn’t always think the editing process was a good idea because I wanted my first write-up to be a magnificent literary achievement, and that’s just not how I work I guess. Hell, I’m still trying to get something to be a decent literary achievement. I’ve learned the value of the editing process now, and will try to stick to it. Chapters will now be released every other Friday, unless I can get faster and better at this. Maybe someday I will be able to release a chapter every week?

I doubt it.