It seems I am in A Phase. Over the weekend I waved a cheerful goodbye to two unfinished novels, then dropped them off my nightstand. The week before that, I got twenty-three pages into another before dumping it onto my library donations pile without so much as an apology. This morning I broke up with a fourth, a best-seller with reviews that swore there was no way I would not love this book. After forty-eight pages I gave up and searched my pile of unread books for yet another victim.
Most of the time I go through books the way I would eat chocolates if my hips allowed it. I finish one and delve immediately into the next, savoring the characters, the plot, the clever turns of phrase. Each time I exercise or clean house or push a squeaky-wheeled cart up and down the grocery store aisles, I plug into an audio book, letting stories wash over me. When hubs and I take our canvas chairs to a nearby overlook to watch the sun set over the desert, we often tote along something to read aloud to one another.
But I cannot, no matter how much I try, completely lose myself in reading while I am in the middle of revisions. Once I spend hours analyzing each sentence of my own work, the picky part of my brain is turned on. From then on, every bit of writing I encounter, whether it is mine or someone else’s, is routed through my editing filter.
That is happening now. The obligatory six weeks have passed between the draft I wrote this summer and the edits required to start submitting it. Now, after several days spent performing major surgery on my novel at every opportunity, my brain has once again turned into an Equal Opportunity Editor, and I’ve gone from eager-to-read to impossible-to-please. The quality of my reading does not matter. If I am spending hours each day examining my own writing, then by habit I will analyze every other sentence to waltz my way as well. Only blogs, it seems, are exempt, perhaps because the style is so different.
My inability to switch off the ruthless reviser inside me is exhausting and inevitable, and totally unfair to the author of whatever pleasure reading I attempt. Worse, my inability to relax with a good book feels unnatural and somehow very wrong. Reading, after all, is what led me into writing, and now writing is preventing me from enjoying reading.
I’ve gone through this before, and I know that it will end. Within days of finishing edits, I will be able to see an adverb without feeling the impulse to ink it out. I will once again have the patience to read backstory — it is, after all, sometimes necessary. I will not automatically pause after I read each line of dialogue, wondering if it should be reworded to make it sound more authentic. I will, in short, be able to lose myself in a book again, which is the best possible incentive for finishing revisions. I’m already saving several books I know I will love for after edits, as a reward.
The second best incentive, for the record, is getting to begin a new story. My next book has already begun to evolve in my mind, and I cannot think of it without a little zing of excitement. But first, revisions.
Welcome to the world of writing. The more rules you learn the harder it is to read just any old book. But the ones you enjoy, you really enjoy.
Good luck on the revisions.
Haha! I’m in the same boat…sort of as far as the reading goes. I think as a writer I’ve read myself dry. Completely! It’s horrible! I can’t appreciate a noval any more and get fed up trying. I very much envy your certainty in having it all end ‘within days of finishing edits’. As to the present day, I go on searching for the book that will hold my attention for more than five chapters! 😀
I’m having a tough time getting into novels right now too. They’re great books, but I too find myself thinking of my revisions.. I’m going to follow your lead and put them to the side until I’m completely done. 🙂
Melissa, I should be used to it by now. After all, I go through this every time. Still, it’s difficult to set aside those books and only focus on my own.
Somegirl, I had that problem when I first started writing. Now I still analyze every book and movie, but over the years I’ve learned to get past the micro-edits and enjoy other people’s stories again. Except for when I’m editing. Then I simply can’t turn it off.
Keri, although I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, I’m also kind of glad to know I’m not alone. If you miss reading the way I do, I hope you can get back into it soon.
here’s hoping you get your reading focus back! 🙂
Happy revising! I hope you’re finished soon and can start enjoying books again!
I’ve never linked the two together. Not being able to finish books and me being in revisions. But now the experiment begins.
My gut feel is if the book is good enough, I’ll be able to finish it.
Really interesting analysis!
I do this too. So while I’m writing, or revising, I never read in the genre I’m working in and I stick mostly to non-fiction. Which is why my TBR pile is seriously out of control!
Good luck on the revisions!
And thanks for the CRUEL SUMMER shout out!
I think it’s a gift that you can really Become The Editor when you’re in that revision mode, even if you have to postpone fun reading for awhile. Revising is such a different skill from brainstorming or drafting, it’s probably a great thing that you can “stay in character” as an editor while you need to…and here’s hoping that’ll make the revision process go just a bit smoother and faster :).
This happens to me, too.
Good luck with the revisions! 🙂