Hit Word-Jumble last night.

I decided to give Blood of the Succubus one last copy-edit while I'm waiting for Lara. Otherwise, I'm done.

Got about 40 pages in before I gave up.

Word-Jumble has taken over.

I had no feels for it. It's just a bunch of words, without meaning.  I mean, I can still catch grammatical errors (mostly typos) but that's about it.  I just have lost the sense of the story.  This always happens to me at some point if I keep on rewriting and rewriting.

So I just have to have faith that the last time I had feels for the story, I was on track.  Which, you know, why wouldn't I be?  So the Word-Jumble isn't a tragedy, it just makes it hard for me to enjoy my own story, but really that probably doesn't matter that much. Once I've finished a book, I never read them again, except to pick them up and sample them at random.

Thing is -- I know the book is better for the extra effort. So...I'm not sorry I did it.

But this is important.  Once Word-Jumble has set in, I must stop rewriting. Rewriting is fine as long as you have the feels.  But a terrible idea without the feels.

I think maybe doing two full rewrites in a row was a little much.  I really need to alternate original with rewrites, to keep it all fresh.

It has me questioning the whole thing, frankly. Yes, I understand that rewrites are important, but if they detract from my enjoyment so much that I don't feel like writing, that doesn't make much sense does it?

It kind of reminds me of the store. Over the years I've dropped things I don't like doing at the store, even if it cost me money.  Oh, not the basic stuff -- I still need to make enough. But a lot of the small annoying things I've just dropped.

Because if I'm not having fun, making a little extra money doesn't matter. What matters for the long run in a business is to avoid burnout, to enjoy what you're doing, so you can continue to bring energy to what you're doing.

So the same thing is true of writing. If I lose the enjoyment, I lose the wellspring from which the creativity flows.

Yeah, when writing becomes onerous, then I'm just subverting myself.

So...Well, I have at least two or three books I want to write the first drafts of, so that's where I'm going from here.

I need to wrap up Tuskers with a fourth book.

I want to write the third Virginia Reed Adventure.

And I have another Golem book in mind.  Plus two or three other smaller projects I'd like to complete.

Only then will I be ready to attempt another rewrite.