When The Right Words Are Still Wrong

I've been editing my manuscript for a while now, and I can't seem to get it quite right. The story is there. The words are on the page, but those words just aren't quite the right ones. Yes, they tell the story. Yes, they're grammatically correct. But they could be so much better.

Have you ever had this problem? The sentences are adequate. But just not as good as you know it could be. And now I'm getting stuck on improving them.

I know I should work on something different. Take a break and come back, yet now it's an obsession. I. Must. Fix. It.

We had a speaker last year at our writer's group who said something very obvious, yet extremely eye-opening for me. He claimed that writer's block was a fallacy (my word, not quite his). Writing is a career, a profession. Just like teaching or human resources or what have you. You never hear of a plumber not showing up for work because he has plumber's block. So why do many writers take that line of thinking?

I've been working on the manuscript Monday through Friday whenever I can manage to cram in some time. If I want to make this work as a job, I need to put in the hours, not the excuses. So here I sit, during my stolen minutes of the day, typing away, furiously trying to make it shine.

And it's not quite there.