Writing a novel can sometimes feel like trying to pull out one of your own teeth with your toes.

Writing a novel can also feel like an awkward dance through literary fun. I love to live in my imagination and tell myself stories. When I was a child this is what I spent most of my time doing, and I’ve simply brought my hobby into my cranky middle age.

It is strange. I am strange. I accept it.

But since I do prefer to keep my teeth,  I organize and set writing and editing goals so as to keep the suffering at a minimum. I also try to do things every day to relax the ole’ brain and keep it filled with color and lightning and nature.

Currently, I am on the third edit of my eight novel. It is giving me hot flashes.

On my first draft, as usual, I wrote 2,000 words a day, 10,000 a week. This is my favorite time, although I do moan and groan about it. The first draft takes about three – ish months to write.

Then I start the editing process. I make a goal each week to edit a certain amount of single spaced pages.   The first edit takes about two months to do. I edit about ten single spaced pages a day, sometimes uttering bad words. The book is total crap at this point, so it takes a long time and a lot of chocolate.

Same with the second edit. Total crap. More bad words. The third edit, I try to whip through fifteen single spaced pages a day, the fourth twenty pages, etc. Eight edits in all.

The last two edits, before the book goes to my editor and agent, take about a week or two each. It is not so crappy anymore. (Although I suppose some people would debate that with me.)

I try very hard to to keep my creativity alive and skipping.

That can be hard with life sometimes.  Life is not always pleasant, as you well know.  Problems arise. Heartaches occur. Relationships are up and down. Housework must be done. The evil morning glory in my yard must be hacked back and I must find clean socks.

So that I don’t box myself into my suburban life too hard, I take long drives in the country to clear my mind. I recently returned from writing at the beach. My husband and I spent a night in central Oregon to visit his uncle, a former WWII fighter pilot.  All these things helped. Coffee helps, too.

But sometimes, late at night, I have to get back to the basics and grab my journal. I have to focus on my difficult, secretive, multi – layered characters who do not come to me complete. Or even semi – complete. Often it feels like they are deliberately pushing back at me and I have to hack away at their shells with a machete.

Every single edit brings the characters out more. By the end of the book, I know them. But often not until the seventh edit are their personalities and lives and flaming faults and craziness totally clear to me.

Same with the plot. Plots can ebb and flow like whiskey and tidal waves.  Sometimes I find myself down a road I absolutely should not be on. I am lost and trying to slay dragons and odd men.

Sometimes I will delete thousands of words – my record is 25,000 words – in less than an hour. I kill off characters you never have to meet.

But when I’m struggling, I pull out the journal I’m currently scribbling in and cut out magazine photos to set my brain on fire again. I need to see the book and my characters in new ways.  These are some of those photos I glued in last night at two in the morning.

Ten pages to edit today… I need more coffee.