Editing Loop... of DEATH

Dun, dun, dunnnnnn.

I’m currently stuck in an editing loop (if that’s not an actual term, it is now, I claim it!).

For those of you who are not in my brain, an editing loop is the act of constantly editing the unfinished work that you’re writing instead of writing more.

I’ve been stuck in this current loop with the novel that I’m working on for about 2 years, the problem is, I just realized it this morning.

My justification this whole time has been “it’s been so long since I’ve worked on this, if I go back and read through what I’ve already written, it’ll put me in the right frame of mind to keep writing” but generally after an hour or two of editing, I get distracted or call it a day before I get any actual writing done.

This is your brain on Editing Loop...
Or at least this is what my brain does.

Happened to me just yesterday. I was going through a paper copy of my urban fantasy/twisted fairy tale that I had done edits on in pen and transferring those edits to my digital copy. I actually managed to get some things done between Facebook creeping, posting on Instagram (Toothless now has his own account: toothless_ski if you want to follow him. I have an account but it’s nothing great. Planning on doing an author one soon because all the amazing book stuff floating around needs to be shared), and Facetiming with my mom, complete with a guilt trip from my dad about still not having said book finished yet. Soon after I hung up with my parents, I realized I was hungry, got up from my computer to make supper, then got sucked into Criminal Minds on Netflix.

So much for getting some actual writing done.

It can't be all bad, right? I mean, I'm still doing author stuff and editing is a necessary evil of the writing world, so I'm actually being proactive.

Right?

While constant editing is not totally bad, it's not great either. Over-edited work is just as bad as under-edited work. It loses it's character and voice; it becomes stilted and clinical. It turns into what that particular genre is "supposed" to look like instead of that glorious piece of art that is part of the author's soul (I'm not writing so my creativity has to escape somehow, if you think this is bad, be glad you're not my coworkers, they put up with this for 40 hours a week).

If you're writing non-fiction, primarily a textbook, being clinical is not a bad thing. It's actually what you're going for so edit away! If you're writing fiction with a fiery, redheaded main character, it is.

So how do you escape the editing loop of death?

WRITE!

How do I escape the editing loop of death?

I'll let you know when I get out.