For 21 months I’ve been working on the same piece and it’s driving me crazy. Most every day I turn on my computer, open the same Word document, and
start the process all over again. I first “completed” the manuscript in June of 2007 and ever since then I have been editing it. No one ever told me just how never-ending this process would be. I won’t stop, can’t stop, but still I am exhausted. I’m exhausted with having to explain myself to other people. Yes, I’m still working on the same novel. No, it has not been published yet. No, I don’t know when or if it ever will be. I find that I regularly have to defend my own sanity, that I have to explain to other people that I am not being obsessive. I am not just correcting spelling and grammar errors. I am still working on things like plot and story line.
Why don’t I give up on my novel? What drives me to wake up every morning and stare at my computer for hours on end, scrolling past words that I have read countless times? What drives writers to work and work and work on the same sentences over and over again? Can writing ever be perfected? Or are we just told one day to put the pen down and walk away?