I seem to only be able to manage a chapter a day of this last edit, so painstakingly nit-picking it is. I have my headset on, listening to my previous recording of the chapter, while I read through it, my mouse pointer on the pause button.
A surprising amount of syntax errors have snuck in and determinedly stayed until this process unearths them, but I’m mostly reconstructing sentences, moving full-stops, removing excessive commas.
I can’t change anything more radically, for fear of breaking the flow of the story, but I am finding the first dozen chapters or so of HM 1: User Interface, very slow moving and possibly, worryingly, boring.
I want to interject them with snippets of hints of the ending of HM 3: Artificial Intelligence. I want to start writing book 4, which is quickly developing itself in my head as I laboriously work on improving book 1. Again.
I can see why people use professional editors. Writing is so much more fun.
Meanwhile, I’m editing someone else’s book, which is – as I don’t know the ending – uncomfortably, more interesting than my own. This is just annoying and I can’t wait to finish that, it being about half the length of just one of my three. So, the other person’s book is getting more daily attention than my own, which is also annoying.
I am stamping around for half of my days, feeling annoyed. Will I ever finish the other person’s book? Will I ever finish my own? Right now, it’s as slow as a tiny leak on a dripping tap and about as irritating.
I have too much ADHD for this and an abundance of spare physical energy, which is useful, because there is a lot of outside work for me to do. Editing my own book takes half an hour a day. Editing the other person’s book, an hour. Driving offspring to their place of work or study, visiting relatives, spending time with other people, two or three hours. Housework and cats: another hour or so. Cooking and eating, another hour.
There is spare time, I can see that. I want to spend that working outside.
And I will. I will.