NaNo No Mo

That was supposed to be all slang-like for "no more." I think I spelled it wrong. Oh well; I never claimed to be "down with it."

Some of you may have noticed the disappearance of my NaNo sidebar thingamajig. Yes, this means what you think it means: I have stopped doing NaNo.

Now listen! *ducks* Stop throwing red pens at me! I have a good reason!

I've been sucked back into the world of Stream Pirate. All your support during ISPAW helped with that, as did a few minor (*coughcoughNOTreallyminorcoughcough*) revelations. Thus I set aside my beloved Max (don't worry, dear Maxie; you will get your day) to partake instead of NaNoRevisMo.

And let me tell you, I am an editing FIEND. This is not a good thing.

See, when I edit, I get it into my head that I have to do it all NOW. Or ASAP. Thus I spend day after day hunched over my laptop until midnight at which point I sit up, stretch, and realize I haven't eaten since breakfast (my next book idea: The Editing Diet: How to Trim the Pounds While Trimming the Words). This is not healthy, for the obvious reasons. But it is also not healthy because NO ONE CAN EDIT A BOOK IN ONE SITTING.

(I capitalized that for my benefit.)

I guess I should specify: No one can edit a book WELL in one sitting. Whatever little voice in my head that thinks otherwise is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And this is why, in timeline form:

10AM: This is GREAT! Wow, these changes are working so well. Everything's clicking! Like one of those 500 piece puzzles!

12PM: Gosh, it's already been two hours? I swear it should still be 10:30AM!

2:30PM: This is going so well. But -- I can't feel my legs.

4:00PM: I only looked away from my laptop for a second, but WOW. I don't remember outside being so bright.

5:00PM: What's that buzzing sound? Uhoh. Arm's asleep now.

6:30PM: But if I don't edit this to fit with that, I'll lose the mojo! One more paragraph!

8:00PM: Eyes. Burning. Can't. Stop. One more! One more page, I swear I'll stop after that!

10:00PM: Words. Floating. Why does my body hurt? OW! The moon is so BRIGHT! Make it stop, make it stop!

12:00AM: ...

(The "..." represents an inability to form coherent sentences. Because after 12+ hours of editing, all words, no matter how BRILLIANT, lose their meaning. You start saying things like "The puppy's bed is the room living in!" and you just CANNOT figure out why that sentence doesn't sound right. It's infuriating.)

So, take it from me. Edit in moderation.

If now excuse you'll me, I have to bed go.