Nearly November

I stayed up tonight with the intention of revising/rewriting a short story I intend to submit, but about 1300 words in I've pretty effectively lost focus.

I really enjoy the first of editing--finding the problems. I like to find some of the ridiculous inconsistencies I can manage even in only a few thousand words (typically, characters introduce themselves twice with different names, or start the story at 19 and end it as 29). I like finding the rough patches that I know have promise and cutting out the lines I was clearly insane to think had any potential.

But then comes the second part, where I have to figure out -how- to expand on the areas that I know need to be fixed. The part where I have to decide on a name or age that will be the same through the entire story. That part is entirely more difficult, which is why I enjoy editing other people's stories quite a bit more than editing my own. I don't have to do step two for other people.

And speaking of writing, it's something I'm becoming increasingly bipolar about. In the same day, I'll go from thinking that writing is simply too much work and a waste of my time to really believing that I should be spending every free minute working on a project and that if I do I'll actually find some success. And maybe that's pretty typical for writer-types, but it's also incredibly frustrating.

But I haven't stopped, so that's something. I'm debating if I want to give NaNoWriMo one more shot this year--every year, I insist that I'm tired of losing (which is true) and that I'm going to call it quits, but somehow I always end up trying again. I first gave it a shot only a couple of years after it started, and after several pathetically weak attempts, decided to give up. This was right about the time my writer friends discovered NaNo, and I found myself roped in again. I made 20,000 words last year, which is less than halfway to the month's goal. It is also the closest to it I have ever come and the most I have ever written in a single month.

So I'm sure I'll be trying again this year. Because if I can't hate myself for what I've gotten myself in to, what's the point of even being a writer?