Follow Writing About Writing

Interested in following Writing About Writing? Or Chris Brecheen as a writer?

If you're trying to follow Writing About Writing (or if you are trying to follow ME as a writer), it might actually be confusing to navigate all the different ways I am online and what goes where.

Writing About Writing is on several social media, but each medium is updated a little bit differently. Some get every post I make, no matter how major or minor. Some media are privy to a cycle of "reruns" where most days I cycle through the popular posts of the past so that new folks can see old posts they may have missed (and old fans can be reminded of treasured classics).

Some social media have different signal-to-noise. Some I update in other capacities. Some are fire and forget. In some, I post my writing that is not "about writing," like the blog NOT Writing About Writing. Other places, more strictly ABOUT writing, pretty much keep it to this blog and it's updates along with macros, puns, and "You should be writing" memes.

Here are a few questions I get a lot:

What should you follow if you want to see everything I write? 

You want My Public Facebook Page. Follow it (or friend it if you check out the guidelines below). Though be warned that it can sometimes be like drinking from a fire hose. I will post everything I write, including reruns, but I ALSO post navel gazing, proto-posts, Jack-Handy-caliber deep thoughts, amateur political punditry, social justice thoughts, macros, silliness, and geekery. 

What should you follow if you basically want all the official posts I write, but not a bunch of crap about politics, video games, my day, or social justice?

You want My Twitter. Every post from every blog plus the reruns. I never post anything there that is not a Writing About Writing or Not Writing About Writing link. 

Beware though: I cross post everything I write to Twitter, but I don't post anything else. So it is perfect noise-to-signal if you only want to see my finalized writing, but not if you're looking for memes or something.

What should you follow if you basically want the Writing About Writing blog, but almost nothing else. 

You want the Writing About Writing Group. TWO posts most days (one new and one rerun). There is one meme (but only one) that is the prior day's best from the page. I almost never post from my other writing, and I almost never post more than one meme.

What should you follow if you basically want memes, puns, articles, and "you should be writing" reminders and don't really care about reading my blog?

Okay, that's cool. No no. It's fine. Really. While I put some aloe on this burn, you want the Writing About Writing page. Lots of memes, macros, puns, and comics and it's easy to scroll past the occasional post from my blog.

What should I do if I want all of these things? All of it! Give me more!!

Follow the Writing About Writing Facebook Page, The Writing About Writing Facebook Group, and my Public Facebook Page. Then go to the following button on the page and set your preferences to "See First." I will warn you that you may see some repeat posts, but this if you want to miss the fewest things I post, this is the way.

All nearby Mandalorians in unison:
"This is the way"

The "Join this site" button on the left, toward the bottom of this (and every) page. 

Following Writing About Writing through Google's Blogger allows you to assemble a collection of blogs you follow. Most people following the blog this way have their own blog through Blogger, but it's not necessary. (You only actually need a Google account, which many people have through Gmail.) You will be notified when I write a new post.

Pros- Shows all updates (minor and major). Updates in a timely manner.

Cons- No reruns. No posts from any other venues. Blogger usually takes a few hours to get the latest post up.

R.S.S. Feed 

Note: Google has recently discontinued FEEDBURNER, but if you still want an RSS and/or email feed, here is a page of alternatives. 

If you have an RSS reader, you may like to simply be updated by having your RSS feed updated with the text of my latest post. If you click on the Feedburner button AT THE BOTTOM of the page, you can subscribe to Writing About Writing through a number of RSS readers including FeedDemon, Netvibes, My Yahoo, Shrook, NewsFire, RSSOwl and more. 

One of many Feedburner alternatives at the link above.

Pros- Shows all new updates (major and minor). Updates instantly.

Cons- RSS feed does not include reruns (even the Greatest Hits I like to cycle through). No posts from other venues. Many RSS readers are JUST text, so you won't see the images that are part of the posts. Also, if you get a little behind on your feed, catching up feels Sisyphean and knowing the next update is coming feels like the sword of Damocles. (Gotta get my Greek metaphors on.)

Email Notification 

….has been disabled by Blogger.

I'm really sorry. I will keep my eye on a replacement. When I'm making enough to pay all the bills with writing, one of the first orders of business is going to be hiring a web designer to completely overhaul the site and have all the cool things that I can't figure out how to do.

Twitter

(That heading is the link to my twitter--just click on it) 

I know Twitter is a mess with the Elon Musk thing, and it's turning into everything I hate about people who think they're free speech advocates (but who are really just bigots who don't like social consequences) getting their hands on the gatekeeping power of controlling a medium. However, I am currently not making enough to take the 15% traffic hit that not posting to Twitter would cost me.

Pros- Gets all written posts by Chris (reruns, new, other blogs, everything).

Cons- Gets only a little of anything else.

Facebook Page for Writing About Writing 

(That heading is a link)

W.A.W.'s Facebook page is its whole own thing.

In order to build an audience on Facebook, I spend a lot of time posting memes, macros, "you should be writing" reminders, inspirational messages, videos, and whatever thing about writing I find interesting and want to share.

This may seem counterintuitive, but I actually try NOT TO POST TOO MUCH FROM MY BLOG. The audience I've spent years carefully cultivating will not stick around if things get spammy. Most of the FB audience is there for the shenanigans, not the blog cross-posting.

You can increase your chances of seeing posts by setting the page to "see first," but you'll never see everything……because Zucc. FB does something horrible frequently enough that if I could som

Click "See first" to see more. 
But because FB wants page admins paying money
nothing you do will ever get you everything I post.
(You have to visit the page periodically and go through our history for that.)

Pros- Lots of other fun stuff going on. 

Cons- Lots of other stuff going on which. Also the FB algorithm prevents page followers from seeing every post so some W.A.W. posts will get lost. Not a good place to get all the blog updates if you want them. Enjoying anything on FB requires a shower with steel wool and industrial cleanser. Facebook is the Antichrist.

Tumblr 

(The heading is a link)

I joined Tumblr after Facebook's latest round of content throttling. Then Tumblr started doing it too and THEN they axed LGBTQIA+ content because of overkill compliance with Fosta/Sesta. These days I'll post all my blog stuff (reruns too) including from the non-writing blog, and a few of my well received memes very similar to my FB group except more memes and I sometimes I share other Tumblrs or something a little social justice-y. 

Pros- Blog posts from all locations. Best meme of the day. 

Cons- Somewhat limited presence on Tumblr. And I share other Tumblr posts about social issues from time to time.

Facebook's Writing About Writing Group

(The heading is a link)

Different from the FB page, the Facebook GROUP will only have the blog posts (usually two a day) and a single macro/meme/infographic that is kind of like "The prior day's best."

Pros- Mostly just blog cross posts. (Reruns and current.) Once-a-day "best of" macro/meme.

Cons- Nothing else.

My Public Facebook Profile

(The heading is a link) 

My Public FB profile is a melange of personal updates, posts about politics and social issues, geekery, things I find about non-monogamy, introversion, and pop culture. But it will also include some "behind-the-scene" thoughts about writing, running a page, and the creative process. (And sometimes complaining about some of the people I run into on the page itself.) If you wish there were more "Social Justice Bard" posts, this is a place where you can read the proto-versions of some of them as well as the ones that never make it to the blog.

You might want to follow for a while and decide IF you want to send me a friend request. I'm definitely not everyone's cup of tea with the geekery and the social justice stuff. 99.9% of my posts are public, so you really wouldn't be missing anything except the ability to comment.

If you don't care for my (very) occasional social issues post on other social media, you will like my profile even less. I write about that stuff almost daily. I can be a bit much for people. I post a lot. 

I have a Commenting Policy for this profile. You should read it before charging in. ESPECIALLY before charging into a contentious post. 

If you do want to "FRIEND" me, send me a PM with your request. (Don't worry, I check my "Message Requests" inbox at least once a day.) That account gets around 100-200 friend requests a week. I reject most of them because I don't know if they're there to try and rent my page or just pick a fight in the comments. So send me a message along with the request.

Pros- See more of "me." Get "behind the scene" updates. See "alpha" versions of posts and thoughts that never quite make it.

Cons- I post a LOT. I am not shy about my liberalism/leftism. 

Instagram

(The heading is a link)

Yes, I even have an Instagram. It gets a couple of memes each day and a very occasional link to my blog on some super relevant picture, as well as the the occasional selfie (although self-promotion demands that I point out my Patreon selfie tier is still the best way to get those and nature pictures I take with my snazzy camera). 

Patreon

(The heading is a link)

Though Patreon is less of a social medium, my patrons do get pictures and content through various tiers that are not available to anyone else. Newsletters, early access to posts, and the occasional post about what's going on that my regular readers aren't privy to. 

Others? 

I would love if something better existed than these few (oft problematic) sites. Anything. Right now, though, I am fettered. For all Twitter's muskiness and Facebook's throttling and trying to squeeze blood from my stones (and even restricting my account for no reason and not telling me why), these sites are what have made it possible for me to be a working writer.

"About Writing" is Coming Soon

Just a reminder that during the ten days between Solstice and New Years, I take off from blogging here at Writing About Writing. However, I have also been writing about my recent woo experiences over the last couple of years at my other blog…which you can find here.  

Nine Things For Writers to Let Go Of

I don't write much about my woo-woo practice here. I write a little in my other blog from time to time (and there may be more coming), but it tends to be something I am circumspect about around most folks. Usually my reaction when I talk about anything like being genderqueer, pansexual, non-monogamous or pagan—when folks demand to know "what does THIS have to do with writing,"—is probably the opposite of what they intended. It makes me want to write about that stuff MORE. But my practice is mostly personal and I don't like to proselytize.  

However, last night was the "long moon." (Also sometimes "cold moon" or "oak moon.") It's the last full moon before the solstice. That's an astronomic term, not just for us new age folks who like to wank off with our moon water. And whether you consider lunar cycles to have any particular spiritual significance or would just prefer to consider a social psychological practice, the long moon is a time where a lot of people ritualistically let go of the fetters and thoughts that no longer serve them.

For me, it's a tricky practice. I don't just let go of every terrible event or relationship or moment that's ever happened to me. Some of those experiences have galvanized me, and sometimes the worst things I go through end up leaving this indelible goodness in places and ways I could never have expected. And as I tried to carefully edit my list, I started to realize how well some of the ideas I wanted to let go of mapped onto my own career and creative life.

So I came up with a list for writers.

[Before we go ANY further, I want to take a moment to talk about the gaslighting effect of toxic positivity. Letting go of that which no longer serves us is NOT THE SAME THING!

We're not going to always look on the bright side. There's no benefit to feeling guilt over negative emotions. Just because "it could be worse" does not mean it isn't bad, or a person should never feel bad feelings. Not everything will work out, and the universe is cold and uncaring—not your secret conspiratorial pal. (The tendency for everything to work out is more accurately described as privilege.) Not everyone gets a happy ending. And on top of the ways in which negative emotions are ignored and shamed, toxic positivity can fountainhead a whole movement that tries to whitewash systemic and systematic injustice with "love and light" and call any attempt to accurately recognize such injustice as "negativity." 

For some folks, some of the items on this list cannot be simply willed out of existence no matter how intense one's spiritual practice. Some will require years of therapy. Some need meds. Some of the items on this list (in some cases all) will be made worse by mental illnesses, and just wishing them gone on a particular full moon night won't fix the problem. Some may be chronic in the lives of a number of writers, and they will spend a lifetime working around them. I make no value or moral judgements about anyone's ABILITY to let these go. But if they can be released, a writer will be better for it.]

1- Perfectionism

Spoiler alert. It'll never be perfect. You have to find the sweet spot of "as good as you can get it for what you're trying to do" and then let it go. If you're trying to write a literary masterpiece, maybe you put in a few more drafts than if you are punching out the 15th popcorn novel in a series so that your fans will buy it up and keep your rent paid for the next six months. But whatever you're trying to accomplish, at some point, it's reached its glass ceiling of limited returns. And that's when it's time for you to do what all artists should do, and move on.

Perfectionism just leads to anxiety, procrastination, and a fear of failure that will stymie ANY progress.

Make it as good as you can (for what it is). Done is better than perfect. 

2- Comparative Benchmarks of Success

There will always be someone with a more widely read blog or better selling novel or who is just a little further along in their career. To say nothing of the Stephen Kings and Neil Gaimans and Colleen Hoovers who eclipse us all with their phenomenal success. This has never been clearer to me than having entire MFA cohorts gawking at my relative success while I try to justify the expense of eating at Panera for the second time in a week. I bet Stephen King gets Panera as often as he….okay, maybe best to let this go.

We are absolutely SOAKING in a commercial culture that wants us to compare ourselves to each other. (Often so we'll buy a product that'll make us feel better about that comparison—see below.) But these comparisons lead to feelings of envy, depression, and are inextricable from a certain virulent sense of entitlement about what we are due. Better to focus on the work and how to continue forth with the best possible effort day after day.

3- Rampant Materialism

Look, there's a whole movement that tries to shame poor people for going to the emergency room or for eating anything but beans and rice. Fuck that. FUCK IT. We all require safety, which includes food security, shelter, medical care, and not worrying about the clicking noise that the only car available we have to get to the job two towns over has started making. There are an awful lot of people who have nothing to cut out of a budget and who have to do what they can to make ends meet. Believe me. I walk a neighbor's dog for a few bucks anytime I want Panera. 

But there is a level of materialism that a writer could do without. This is not a well-paying career until/unless one is well established with a LOT of work in the rearview. Everything from being secure on a tighter budget to not having to work long hours at some job that takes you away from writing will be served by not letting a never-sated lifestyle obsession dictate the unending quest for more and better stuff.

4- Limiting Beliefs/Negative Self-Talk

You can't do ANYTHING you set your mind to, no matter what the cishet white male motivational speaker with the six-figure salary says you can. And acknowledging systemic and systematic injustices and inequalities in a world rampant with both is not somehow what's holding folks back. No matter how clear the thought, or how many candles are lit, no one can manifest themselves out of real-world limitations. 

But there is a needle to thread, especially for a writer. If you give oxygen to your catastrophic intrusive thoughts, you create a reality in which these objectives are just as impossible as you believe them to be. If you keep thinking that you can't write that book or no one will ever want to read you, you are very likely to talk yourself out of even trying. Then you definitely won't get it done. 

Sometimes there's a fine line between blithely spewing rainbows up people's butts and a simple belief that you can accomplish something worthwhile if you keep trying. (Maybe not exactly what you wanted, but something.) Not every positive thought has the ability to alter your reality…but ironically, most negative ones actually do.

5- Concern for the Opinions of Others

Please understand that I'm not telling you to go publish your unedited NaNoWriMo novel because other people's opinions are useless. I'm not telling you that you don't need an editor or peer feedback or to listen to anyone. You have to be willing to listen to some people.

But it's up to you who.

If you sit around and worry about the opinions of everyone, you'll never get it done. It's just too damned scary. MOST people won't like what you do. People won't like your style. They won't like your content. They won't like your politics. They won't like your philosophy. They won't like your adherence to a style guide that puts in the comma when they wouldn't have. They won't like your adherence to a style guide that leaves out the comma that they would have put in. They won't like that you said "fuck." They won't like your joke about cishet white dudes. They won't like that you eat at Panera. There are eight billion people in the world, and even if you somehow manage to reproduce the outrageous, phenomenal, unthinkable success of She Who Shall Not be Named and sell 500 million copies (which is far from being LIKED by everyone who buys a copy, BTW), you still will have 15/16ths of the world basically unimpressed by you. MOST people aren't going to like you. And if you sit around caring about all of them, not only will your simple act of expressing YOURSELF suffer, but you'll never find the people who will think you're great.

6- Your Past Failed Goals

You either hit them or you didn't. 

Kudos if you did—or got close. 

If not, don't dwell on it. Get up. Dust yourself off. Set new goals—perhaps slightly easier ones. This is a new day/week/month/year. 

I wanted to be published by 30…then 40…now I'm thinking 50 might be a stretch. 

But if I let my failure at 30 define me, I'd never have a writing career. Hell, if I let my failure to write two articles a week during my cancer recovery define me, I'd be sunk. 

If you aren't failing at goals from time to time, your goals are too easy. Set new ones. 

7- Saying Yes to Everything

Protect your writing time. 

Protect your writing time.

Protect your writing time.

I can't tell you what your priorities in life are. Family? MMORPGs? Sex parties? Dating? Eating at Panera? Off-road mountain biking? But if you say yes to EVERYTHING, there's nothing left for writing. It's really that simple.

8- The Excuses

We've all got them, and most of them suck.

You'd be harder pressed to find someone who DOESN'T think they have a book in them…along with a list of excuses as long ass their arm for why they haven't written it. 

If you don't want to write, don't write. That's okay. No really, that's really, really, REALLY okay.

If you do want to write, you have to let go of the excuses.

[Insert a Panera joke here.]

9- Hubris

Negative self talk is one thing. Thinking you don't need an editor or that your first draft is ready after a quick edit is another. Get rid of both.

If you want to be a writer, you have to let go of the idea that you are a gift to the written word. You need an editor (maybe two). You need to revise. You need to trust the process and rewrite rather than just polish your first draft. You need to get messy.

If you just want to self-publish, admire your own book on your own bookshelf, and never even sell enough to buy lunch at Panera, don't let me get in your way. But if you want more than your pressured-into-it friends buying your novel, you need to release your ego.

What CAN You Do (Prompt)

Are you having trouble writing…or maybe writing the way you once used to?

Today's process prompt has two points of inspiration. The first is based on the cry I have heard from so so SO many writers that the pandemic is destroying their productivity. Even when it's not "The Pandemic™," it's the pandemic. If it isn't social distancing and risk assessment literally and directly affecting their ability to concentrate or enjoy writing, maybe that is making everything just a little bit worse. Life continues to be life-like—pandemic or no—with its break ups, deaths, massive upheavals, moves, and general lifey bumps, but toss in a pandemic and you have fewer support mechanisms, fewer mental resources, fewer enjoyed activities, and just fewer emotional reserves, and more baseline anxiety. I've seen more people unable to establish or reestablish a daily writing habit in the last couple of years than ever before. It's entirely possible that most of us could keep writing through most of these trials and clichés on our own. It's just that when the life is already being sucked out of you, there's an aggregate effect.

The second is a more personal font of inspiration. Recovering from cancer has been a slow process and I'm often not quite where I think I am in that process. I'm definitely doing better, but I can't seem to reach even my own modest goals most of the time. If I want to do three articles in a week, maybe I do one or two. I look at the calendar and think there's plenty of time to write a big article and then one of the kids gets sick.

Of course, I sing the praises of morning writing (and later a floating half hour of writing) if you're trying to jump start your creative flow, but sometimes even that seems impossible. Sometimes even thirty minutes here or there might be daunting or just getting up and getting out o, and then you need to take a step back even further.

Do not despair if you failed NaNo. Or if you can't seem to focus for long enough to get anything written. Or if you've tried to restart an hour of writing every day for the last month. You just need to break down your goals even further.

There's this idea of tiny goals—if you're not familiar with it, it's pretty easy to understand. Instead of setting goals that feel too big and are overwhelming, you set a much smaller goal. Even a reasonable goal might feel daunting so you set an EVEN SMALLER goal. Instead of meditating for twenty minutes a day, you sit in your meditation spot for thirty seconds a day (and see if you want to do a little more). Instead of doing a five mile run, you put on your running clothes and go stand on the street for two minutes.

So instead of thinking of a reasonable writing goal, think of one that is entirely too easy. Something that feels trivial—silly to even mention. Instead of writing for thirty minutes, just write ONE SENTENCE. Or if you're feeling totally baller, do a paragraph. But the point is that you don't do something you think you SHOULD be able to accomplish. You do something that is absolutely too easy for you. 

Set a goal that you can't possibly fail at. 

Sit down. Knock out your one sentence. (Or one paragraph. Or five minutes. Or whatever.) 

Of course, once you're there and you've done a sentence, you might want to just do one more, but you don't have to. You're done. And you have one sentence more than you had before. And maybe the next day, you make it two sentences because one was so darned easy. 

Sometimes a full goal is daunting. Sometimes we just need to get ourselves into position and inertia will start to carry us forward. Sometimes we need to put one in the wins column and take a victory lap instead of feeling like a failure. Don't be afraid to set the smallest of goals, knock them out, and then see where you are. 

Where Would I Take a Guest (Non-Writing Mailbox)

15- If you had a friend come to town who’d never been here before, where would you take them that wasn’t necessarily a big tourist spot? Or maybe you would take them to a tourist thing. Who knows :) 

[Couple of notes: 

1- Non writing questions are going into a full 20 Questions post when I'm done with all of them, but there are way too many to not break them up into separate posts.

2- I'm still looking for questions to answer in my mailbox. Mostly writing questions, but you can send me anything and I'll get to it eventually.]

This has happened a couple of times, and I'm usually not much into the tourist spots myself unless there's a specific place that a guest wants to go. I'll take them to Alcatraz or to see Fisherman's Wharf or the Golden Gate Bridge if they are wanting that experience, but I'm much more likely to find something they like and tailor a local adventure to that. If they want to see the ocean, we head down to Half Moon Bay and take a hike along the cliffs and then down to the beach. If they want to see a museum I'll take them to the DeYoung (or Cal Academy if they're a big nerd). If they want a vigorous hike, I'll show them the Lafayette Reservoir rim trail. If they like to eat Mexican food, we go on a Fruitvale taco crawl. 

Still, I rarely do that either. A lot of my visitors are more of the "hang out and enjoy each other's company" type. We putter around locally. Maybe go for a hike. Or perhaps we just knock out some grocery shopping that I need to do anyway. We hit a few local restaurants. There's lots of talking. Maybe we watch a movie or something.

Can You Smell What the Chris is Cooking?

It's been a quiet week here, but I'm hoping by next week, you will understand why—or at least get the first hints of what is going on that I've been so busy with. Today was Treble and Clef's observance of Veteran's day, so I basically had about four and a half extra hours of childcare. And it looks like I've gotten nothing done this week. 

I'm not going to lie—I'm still stumbling more than I'm cranking out the word counts. It's been a long and slow road to recovery. But the posts are coming and a major project is in the works. 

Basically what happened is that my editor came to me with their part of something I had been hinting that I wanted to do for a couple of years now. They had done it. It was already completely finished. Suddenly, I was in a position to get a major non-blog project done. 

But there was a catch…

It was about NaNoWriMo. Which meant I had to drop everything and put it all into getting this project done if it was going to be done in time to be topical. Otherwise it would have to wait for an entire year. 

So that's what I did. I dropped everything and started working. I have a shit ton of editing and polishing and revision to do as fast as I can possibly do it, as well as two articles that are absolutely essential to round out the final version of this project. One of those will go live next week as part of the regular blog, and I HOPE this thing will get off the ground while NaNo is still a thing.

To Editor or Not to Editor (Mailbox)

Note 1: I still need more questions to help me with my multi-week, get-back-into-the-swing-of-writing mailbox-a-thon. Please keep sending questions for me to answer to chris.brecheen@gmail.com, and they may get featured in an answer post.

Note 2: The multi-week, get-back-into-the-swing-of-writing mailbox-a-thon will mean that I'm off update schedule for a while while we deep dive into answering your questions.

[Remember, keep sending in your questions to chris.brecheen@gmail.com with the subject line "W.A.W. Mailbox." I will use your first name ONLY, unless you tell me explicitly that you'd like me to use your full name or you would prefer to remain anonymous.  My comment policy also may mean one of your comments ends up in the mailbox. Long questions? Short answers? I'm here for it!] 

Tyler asks:

First of all--I love your blog. It's helped me shape a lot of my writing philosophy. I read Brande. I started working every day I can on writing. I did the floating half-hour. It's all helped immensely, and over the past three years that I've been writing seriously, I've noticed that I've been getting better, and I have some thanks to give to you for your advice. Thank you for all you do, and hope soon you can return to blogging--but as I'm sure people tell you all the time, take care of yourself.

My mailbox questions...

Do you use an editor, or do you self-edit? What does this look like for you when you are posting 3 times or so a week?

I've been writing for three years, and have yet to publish anything. However, I've felt my writing getting substantially better over the last few months. I've been working on a short story/novella for 1.5 years or so, but while I've only recently been able to tell the story the way I want to. However, I feel that perhaps I am getting stuck on this one idea for too long. I'm not expecting to get my time back out of the work, but how do you decide when it something should be published? I feel I could wrap up the story in another rewrite or so, but when I try to work on other ideas I feel distracted by this work, knowing it is so close.

Thanks for all you do Chris, I look forward to seeing more of your work!

My reply:

I usually try to open my mailbox replies with a totally hilarious joke (and believe me, they are always absolutely brilliant), but I have just got to say that it's really touching to have been doing this whole thing long enough that I'm starting to get folks writing in who have been taking my advice for years. I have a whole bookshelf section of people's first signed books with a few words of thanks for all the "You should be writing" memes or blog posts or just general advice over the years. And while my suggestion to do things like write every day or maybe skip NaNoWriMo if you don't already have experience writing at a fevered pace have always garnered a certain level of…let's say "spirited disagreement" (usually from people who have yet to hit those goals they claim rank upon their most ardent desires), once in a while folks who have gone ahead and tried what I propose take the time to write me and let me know that it actually worked like a charm and they're writing regularly and feeling much better about everything.

So to all my naysayers. "Nyaaaah!" Where's YOUR fucking bookshelf of signed first editions, huh? 

Okay, that was petty. I'm being petty.

No, not TOM Petty.
Jesus Fucking Christ, who is in charge of picking the pictures on this blog? 
Why won't they back down?

So Tyler, it turns out your first question is a lot easier to answer. I work with an amazing editor. And it's a good thing too because if you go back to before we worked together, it's REALLY painfully obvious. Not only do I make lots of mistakes (particularly when it comes to where the commas go) but there's just this noticeable dip in quality. My editor doesn't just fix my grammar and spelling. She also helps me be….a better writer than I am—or at least the best writer I can be. She teases out what I mean to say and helps me sharpen and tighten my language. Once she's gone through a draft, it's just a much better piece of work. 

Occasionally I finish a post too late to get it in front of her before I need to post it, or it's just really short and I think I can probably keep it mostly error free on my own. (Narrator's voice: They couldn't.) This is inevitably when I end up finding a sentence I didn't even finish, an idea I expressed badly, and half a dozen grammar mistakes….in the first paragraph—of course that's after I've posted.

So yes, editor is good. And if you can't afford one, work out a trade. And if you can't work out a trade, at least get some peer review. And if you can't get peer review, at least get a second set of eyes from someone who isn't trying to bang you. This is part of the process for a reason. We all suffer from knowing what we MEANT when we wrote something. 

The more complicated question is when you NEED an editor (and how many drafts you should do), and that gets into the tricky land of revision. I hate to answer your question with a question, but how important is this writing? As my attempts to go forth without an editor indicate, you should probably have at least a second set of eyes for anything you expect to be read. 

Imagine a logarithmic graph….

Or just look at this one if you have trouble imagining 
calculus in your head.

So revision and editing is like this graph. The first draft to the second draft will be unbelievable improvement. VERY notice. Much improve. Wow! Then the change from the second draft to the third draft will probably be somewhat less noticeable but still quite apparent. From third draft to fourth, you might feel like you are getting limited returns even though you are still improving upon the work.

Your efforts to keep polishing will keep yielding a better and better draft, but the curve will start to flatten. To get a draft that is as much improved between draft 2 and 3, you would have to do draft 4, 5, and 6 (in addition to 2, and 3, of course). Yes, it will keep getting better. There is basically no point where another pass by an editor won't find SOMETHING, but how willing are you to put in that effort? Yes, the returns get more limited. It will take longer and longer to yield a significantly better draft. How much time and energy do you want to spend improving this? Is it your Great American Novel™? Or is it the content for a random day's blog post? Masterpieces are probably most discernible from what I call "popcorn books" because they go through somewhere around five to ten more drafts. 

And this is one of the painful truths of art. Perfection is a goal we must strive for but can never attain. We can just get closer and closer (like the flea in the thought experiment who jumps half the distance from point A to point B every jump). And eventually we have to decide that our work is good enough for what we're trying to achieve, call that work complete (as complete as it will be), and move on. 

Deciding that a piece is ready for publication is a very personal decision if you're self-publishing (and a very gatekeepery decision if you're traditionally publishing). Obviously, I can tell you when something is clearly NOT ready (draft one…maybe two…lots of grammar errors…maybe a few continuity problems…and a chapter that is basically your freshman composition essay on why Mario is a scathing indictment of capitalism), but as you clean up your work and improve it, this becomes an increasingly subjective decision. It really has a lot to do with whether you feel the work is ready to go out into the world, and there's almost no objective way for someone else to tell you. Even in traditional publishing—where you would think you would be getting a more "ready/not ready" objective value judgement—factors like how popular the genre is matter way more than some rubric of quality. Seriously, things get published (traditionally) all the TIME with glaring errors in grammar, confusing wording, and absolute shit prose. 

So I hate to leave you with a bit of a non-answer, but it's really up to you, your sense of how ready your work is, and how close to perfection you want it to be.

I will give you this one freebie though, Tyler. When writers are starting out, they tend to underestimate how much revision and editing their work needs. It is a tragically common error among new writers to assume that they just need a grammar polish. I promise promise promise pinkie swear that you (nor anyone else) will be the exception to the rule that you are going to have to do some big revision. For most starting writers, it will take a significant number of peers FAILING to tell them that they are unsung literary geniuses (and maybe even saying, "this was a little confusing and stilted") before they begin to put their ego to the side and consider editing and revision (with peer review) a crucial part of the process.   If you are new to putting your work out in the world, ERR ON THE SIDE OF TOO MUCH. Later…(much later)…you will start to kind of "revise as you write" and may find that some of your less critical work can be done in only two or three drafts. However, you'll still want to do multiple drafts for the important stuff, which for most of us will include any kind of fiction to be published. 

I hope that helps, Tyler. Good luck.