It's hard to spend so much time on rewriting. I don't enjoy it, but it's necessary, especially since I've written so much over the last three years.

The first year was like a fever. The second year, I still had the energy and desire to keep up the pace. The third year was moderating, setting limits, but still writing at a very productive level.

The fourth year so far has been trying to tie up all the loose ends from those crazy first three years.

I'm glad the way it worked out. I knew that the kind of creative mania I felt in the first three years (especially that first year!) was unusual and probably wouldn't continue. (Plus the "real" world could intervene at any time.) So stopping to clean up seemed like a bad idea at the time.

But after 3 years I looked back and realized that about half of that production was useless unless I took the time to fix things.

But wow, I got so far ahead of myself that I could probably stop writing now, clean up what I've written, and call it a career!

I'm hoping that finishing Devil's Forge and Tuskers IV (both half-written) will satisfy my creative urges and keep my mojo.

If not, I'll grab some wild idea out of the air and write it on a lark and have fun again. I can still feel that urge lurking. Seems to work best if I don't overthink it. Wild pigs bothering a friend, write a joke short chapter and then turn it into a serious book! Vampires--so, so overdone, but dammit I feel like it! Weird westerns? Sure, why not? Faerie Punk, I like it! Gangster Golems? Go for it!

The spirit of fun is what makes it all worthwhile. Fuck the "bleeding words on a page" idea. The idea is to go on an adventure, and hopefully others will want to come along.