I know I haven’t posted in a moon or two, and I wish I could tell you I’ve been editing this whole time. But let’s just say slow and not-so-steady isn’t working very well.

I’ve gone through the conceptualization of Five Rings and two sequel novels, designed outlines, wrote the entire first book, and now all that’s left is the editing/re-writing.

I thought things would be easy from here. I have the weight of all those steps behind me just crushing me to get finished… but…

What I need is a way to inspire myself to commit to sitting down and editing more often. It’s harder for me to sit down and edit than it has been for me to write. I didn’t expect it to be so difficult. Maybe it’s because the changes I make feel more permanent this time around. I more or less have to get it right this time, you know? Or maybe it’s because a few of my author friends seem to have stopped writing altogether, which is a thought that has depressed me quite a bit.

It’s not that I haven’t been working on Five Rings at all, but, too regularly, I’ve been letting other things distract me. My usual method is to try and get distractions out of my system through oversaturation, but this time I’m starting to feel guilty.

I know there’s a lot of great writers sitting down right now editing. Some of which conceptualized, outlined, wrote, edited, and rewrote all in the time it took me to write my first draft. And that’s what I’ve been telling myself lately to keep my damn butt in this chair. Maybe if I can channel the energies of all these wonderfully dedicated writers and feel some sort of virtual kinship to them, it’ll encourage me to sit down and edit, too. 

But any further advice is welcome.