I follow a lot of various motivators on social media, Gary Vaynerchuk, Lewis Howes, Tom Bilyeu, and others. I follow these people for various reasons. I love Gary’s honesty, Lewis Howes the same. I follow Tom because I love his podcast.
There is something that’s been nagging me about following these motivators. I shouldn’t need them. I should be able to write without having someone tell me to keep going.
But that’s the problem, I don’t. It doesn’t compute that I can’t do this myself. I need that kick in the ass every once in a while.
Today was a good example. Gary posted on Instagram about doing one thing that makes you uncomfortable.
My thing is editing. I feel like the time I spend editing is the time I could be writing. I also feel that I’m doing it wrong. That there is some magical formula to editing. After writing seven novels, I feel like it should get easier to edit, it doesn’t.
The fact that I’ve written seven novels and I’ve only submitted one of them to agents is appalling to me. It didn’t use to be. I thought I’d get better at writing through writing, I was wrong. I get better through editing.
It’s taken me thirteen years to realize this. It shouldn’t have taken this long.
When I finished my first novel, a vampire book that I love, I thought I’ll just keep rewriting. There are 8 drafts of that novel on my hard drive. None of them will ever come out. At the time there was no one, other than my wife to bounce ideas off of. Now that I have a writing group, I feel like I can do this.
Editing is the hardest part of writing. The taking away of pieces I loved in the draft, moving them around and creating a coherent, cohesive story is more important than writing something new.
I hate that it has taken this long to understand this.
Here’s what I’ll be doing to finish, truly finish the last three novels I’ve written: By the end of March 2019 I’ll be editing each novel through my writing group. I’ll post the progress on Delusions of Ink for each project.
What are you doing that makes you uncomfortable? Tell me in the comments. Let us keep each other going.
Brian B Baker, Writer 
Hello Brian,
Thank you for posting this! Keep moving forward man. Writing groups are excellent support systems and keep your mind focused on your end goal. If editing is required, then that’s what you will do to achieve your goal! Do the very best you can.
On my end, I am in the process of building a business rather than being content with my current job income. Building a business makes me uncomfortable because there is a lot of responsibility and accountability involved especially when its my own business. I realize I have a little trouble being my own boss.
This is a major growing opportunity for me (like editing) and I plan to attack it so that I can become better ond step at a time.
You got this Brian! ☺
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Keep going and keep getting after it. Thanks for your comment!
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