It has been a little more than two weeks since I triumphantly sat at this very computer keyboard and plonked out the last draft chapter of my NaNoWriMo 2020 novel effort.
This morning I am printing it.
That doesn’t imply any sort of state of “readiness to share” but it occurred to me that sitting in front of the same screens to edit as I did to pen it in the first place may put me in poorly framed perspective for an alpha attack on my own so-recently written words.
In other words, it feels like something I should curl up in my cozy chair with, holding a cup of coffee and a red pen, and scratch out amendments in some old fashioned way.
Y’know — and then add them back into the digital draft.
I have been spurred on by a couple factors.
First, Christmas holidays are approaching. I imagine, maybe optimistically, that I will have lots of time this year, what with being locked down in the middle of the second wave of a pandemic, unable to travel, visit, or even socialize.
Second, I have crafted a life where I have dotted my day-to-day with communicators, many of whom are (or aspire to) write and edit novels of their own. This tends to create an atmosphere of casual cheerleading from unexpected places, and the guilty feeling that this far into the marathon I should really focus and keep running.
(I’m a distance runner, so I’m allowed to use marathon analogies!)
Thus, later this morning and after a hundred-and-change more pages of printing effort I should have in my hands the physical manifestation of my November writing effort: words printed on paper, awaiting some cuddle time on the couch and the idle scratching of my editors pen.