Of course, if you had to read the same thing over and over, you would get sick of it, but sometimes it still surprises me how much I don’t want to edit my work, particularly when I get to the third and fourth edit. Even if I love it, it just feels like a reel of words I’m familiar with and it becomes hard to see it as a manuscript anymore. That might also be because I do it all digitally. You can only scroll through words so much before it drives you insane … or gives you serious headaches.

This is also the reason I haven’t tried reading ebooks. Most of my manga and manhua is read online, but that’s only because it’s often not available in print in my country, or is a bit too expensive for me at the moment. I don’t know if the digital art of some of the manhua I’m reading would also be as good when printed.

And so, the reading I need to buckle down on in the coming weeks is editing. At least, when I edit for work, I’m reading the book for the first time. The drawback is if I don’t like the manuscript.

The biggest drawback of reading/editing my own work actually isn’t having to see the same words over and over, though, it’s in fact the fear that, despite loving it for the first three edits, I’ll come to hate it in the last few. That I’ll realise it’s not worth working on, that no one will want to read it. Just casual writer thoughts, I guess.

The best part of editing my work—other than improving the work—is that I’m often reminded that it’s not total garbage, and seeing those numbers change after “draft” is also greatly motivating, particularly when I know how much work went in just to change them. Yes, I am being productive, I am improving my work. Yes, I am being a writer.