Thoughts (Feelings) from a Not Yet Published Novelist

I’ve asked a few friends who are writing their first novels for some input. Here’s the response from Jay Koppleman, website: <Identicality.com> Perhaps he’s feeling a bit peckish because he’s recovering from the dread coronavirus. I expect when he snags an agent, we’ll see a transformation in his weltanschauung. Who wants to be a writer? I did, but not anymore. The easy part was the first draft. Yeah, there were lots of words -- some 90,000 of those pesky things. And in what order to put them all -- yikes. And that was the easy part? After that was the rewrite and the editing -- all the endless editing. Go to sleep restless and wake up in the middle of the night with another word, sentence, scene, or chapter to change. Hell, seen from a dreary night wrestling with sheets, the whole damn book needs changing. No, not changing -- throwing out. Do I need a bedside notepad or recorder so I can make notes of my midnight madness?

But there is night and then there is morning, but what was it I thought needed changing? I don't remember. Truth is, I don't need to remember. All I need to do is start reading from any place among those 90,000 words and I can easily find something to change. They say that change is a constant in life and our task is to manage it. But what's so important about my lousy manuscript that I have to constantly manage changes to my changes. There must be other things in my life that might be better if I changed them. My wife has a long list of suggestions. But alas, my book, my testament to American culture, a book for all of humanity, demands my first attention. Everything else waits. There are millions of readers awaiting publication of my great work, my magnum opus. I can't let them down. I must carry on.