Biting the bullet

You want to know what's less fun than editing one book written in a week? Editing three books that were written in roughly a week apiece. (Such books don't start out especially, um, coherent.) Unlike the pleasure:fun ratio described in a familiar bubble gum ditty, triple the pleasure is not triple the fun!

When I wrote The Monster's Daughter six years ago, I wrote it as a trilogy. I wanted the first book to stand alone in case I got lazy. Which, turns out, I did! I've waffled on editing the latter books pretty much since they were written.

Rather than bore you with an epic narrative of the pros and cons of tackling all three books, I'll boil it down to one determinative factor: a conversation (let's call it "To Emergency Room or Not to Emergency Room") I had with Ba.D. after our son cut his face on a toy a few months ago. The conversation--as I recall it*--went roughly as follows:

Ba.D.: We should take him to the emergency room. That's an awful lot of blood.
Me: Face wounds bleed a lot.
Ba.D.: True. But it's so much!
Me: We could get some stuff from Rite Aid and try our hand at it.
Ba.D.: We could. But what if it's not enough? WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO OUR BABY?!
Me: Do you think we should go to the emergency room?
Ba.D.: I don't know. Maybe we can handle it? But what if we can't?
Me: Are you driving or am I?

There's a point in dialogue--with yourself or others--where you go, "Do I want to keep having this conversation?" In the end, that question swayed me. It's time to stop that do-I-do-I-not dialogue and just freakin' tackle those other books already. If I don't, that irritating question's gonna keep running circles around my mind.

I'd rather just have it done, clear up that brain space already and focus on other projects. I could plow forward with the non-fiction project I'm 12k words into. Or start the YA urban fantasy I'm going to set in Florence, OR, like Florence could ever really qualify as "urban." ;)

Enough waffling already. I'm cracking my knuckles and doing this thing! Now if only those first drafts were a tiny bit more readable . . . .

* I'm just putting this caveat in here preemptively to appease Ba.D.