Look, Ma, Still Writing

Look what I've gone and done. It's like wrapping a rubberband around my head and looking on while the blood vessels snap. I looked in "the book." The advice book for writers that I think of as Don't-Look-in-Me-Unless-You-Want-to-Crush-Your-Creativity DeathRead.

The author even says as much in her opening pages. Just look: "Attempting to revise while still writing, like exercising while eating, may shut down the body's flow of creative juices and produce verbal constipation." Great, I'll look in the stool later.

Every time I look in this book, I realize the mistakes I've been making. It takes me a good 3-4 days to look past my imperfections, realize they're fixable and get going again. But I can't afford that when I'm trying to finish. I need to look forward, not back at this point.

My latest waywardness came in looking for advice on dialogue. Advice: Careful not to catch gesture-itis. Look, I'm new at this, open to my flaw-filled ways, but it got me clicking on the Find function to look for words I overuse. Guess which one I looked up?

The book is Don't Sabotage Your Submission: Save Your Manuscript from Turning Up D.O.A. by Chris Roerden, ISBN 978-1-933523-31-6.