As of yesterday I turned thirty. Another year has flown by and another is already blazing past. It feels like just the other day I was getting back from Canada and preparing for Christmas. Now I’m doing my best to not have some midlife crisis (especially since my Dad passed away at the age of forty eight) but I’m also not trying to crumble at the prospects of my store being down a manager for the next few months. But who wants to hear about such drama?

Not me, that’s for sure.

In writing, I am at this accursed editing phase which is the part that few writers tell you about. I will liken it to that friend who tells you having kids is some sort of higher calling and that your life is meaningless without them. Then once you’re there and the damn thing is spreading poop all over the walls of its room you realise, you’ve been duped.

Writing for me is absolutely beautiful. The conversion of imagination into reality is an incredibly addictive feeling. Meeting a character on your own pages and having them show you the world gives you a feeling I cannot describe.

Remember that kid drawing on the walls with poop?

That’s editing.

Editing is that absolutely bitter aftertaste from the joyous first sip of glory. The lower half of the mermaid. The side of the coin that lost you the bet. Rock, when you picked scissors. I could go on, but in short… editing is not fun.

So in my novel I have had some beautiful moments of clever writing, and character developments and interactions that made me grin and beam with pride. Then every once in awhile, a line or a paragraph stands out as if I’d been possessed by some Foreign Exchange Student who english is roughly his fifth language. Writing is all high, no lows. You soar with the eagles and dream among the gods.

Then editing tears you down and beats you with a bar of soap in a sock in the middle of the night.

Editing is rewarding don’t get me wrong, but I’m definitely sobering up to my own writing abilities. Especially as a writer who doesn’t drink coffee or tea. I am pretty sure the better part of chapter sixteen was written while I was asleep. Spell check can only do so much before you realise that all the words are spelled correctly, but the sentence itself makes less than no sense and sounds more like the spell from a witch’s tome.

The other problem is my mind keeps having fresh ideas while I am trying to edit. Back stories are getting fleshed out, new characters are appearing to offer more depth to the story and the world becomes less like the real one and closer to its own being.

Now if only I wasn’t so tired, maybe I’d be able to focus on more editing. Not sure how some people worked full time and managed to write a book of quality. My hat is off to those wonderful folks.

Wish me luck, and… happy birthday to myself!