Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I spent several months away from my manuscript (six to be exact), and it's true what they say: Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder.

While my WIP was out with beta readers, I told myself I wasn't allowed to read or mess with it at all. Knowing it was out and in the hands of others to be read felt like I had sent them a part of my soul. I was filled with self-doubt and negative thoughts about the book. I couldn't stop my thoughts from attempting to circle it, so I started writing a new book (check my other post to hear about that).

Finally, the time came for me to return to my Hopeful Debut Novel.

I printed the whole thing, three-hole punched it, and tucked it gently into a binder. Then, I spent an entire day reading, editing, tabbing, and highlighting. Ideally, this would have been spent at the back table of a cute little coffee shop where the caffeine flows endlessly. I, however, live in what my husband calls the middle of nowhere. Instead of sipping lattes in a vibey coffeehouse, I sat at the back table of a small-town diner where I had a ridiculous amount of black coffee while the news played on a nearby TV. (Thank God for headphones).

The main goal in the editing session was to do the first round of copy-edits and find 7,000 words to delete.

I constantly found myself getting sucked in to the plot and the characters and even giggled and grinned at different lines and scenes. At first, I was a little embarrassed to be reacting to my own writing this way, but then I thought, "This has to be a good sign. If I love it this much and I know what's going to happen, surely it's not horrible."

These thoughts were confirmed with each excited text from my beta readers.

"Okay! First of all, loved it!!! You're incredible. Your writing is vivid, mature, and the storyline was really good!! I'm SO happy about how it ended. It really wrapped it all up."

"I literally love the way the story started. It started with a very interesting scene that makes it easy to keep reading and made it hard to put down."

"The college-life vibes are making me sit in the breakroom and smile. I can't help it!"

"When I first read [redacted], i was so mad. i was like no way! OH. MY. GOSH. (chef's kiss emoji)"

"Okay. I could always tell [redacted] but oh. my. god. That whole scene was literally so deep and perfect for the character development."

"Currently sitting in a children's hospital reading your book, which I LOVE so far! I read the line when [redacted], and I audibly gasped and my whole family stared at me!"

All this to say: if you're getting overwhelmed in any area of life, sometimes a little distance gives you a great new perspective.