180 Pages

Think about the most recent book that you read. It was most likely somewhere around the 70,000 word mark because that's a normal book. Now, think about reading that book, and any time that you get to a point that you didn't like, you could change it.

It becomes 'create your own adventure' in the worst way possible. If anything isn't exactly how you want it, or if something doesn't make sense, you can just stop, fix it, and make it make sense. The worst part is that there are times that you just have to stop, delete a large chunk of what you wrote, and then rewrite it all over again.

The hardest part about self editing is looking back through your stuff, and believing that other people want to read it. I'm 50 pages in, and looking to edit the next 50 tonight, and it's hard to look at the story as enjoyable, or even readable to any outside audience. The more I edit it, and the more I start to realize how poor of a writer I am, the more I don't want to even try to publish it.

The problem is, I like it. But it's one of those things that I like it because I made it. I'm still entirely unaware of if other people will like it. I've had a grand total of one person willingly pick it up and read it, but that was because she was bored at work and had nothing else better to do with her time. Other than that, I have no scale to judge if other people are interested, or even like, reading what I write.

Right now, my story is fridge art. I put it up there, and I like looking at it, and my mommy says that she likes it enough to take up the space right next to the Scooby magnet, but I have no sense of if it is actually any good.