Dear Sunday Letter friends,
Happy cold Sunday from Northwest Arkansas! Since I wrote to you last, I’ve mostly been editing my WIP. When the banker in me says WIP, I think of a current asset, a component of inventory. The writer in me knows WIP as my current manuscript. 100,000 words that occupy my every waking (and dreaming) moment.
It’s fun, the editing. And maddening.
I consider every part of writing a book the most important part.
The first draft? Without it, the book would never exist. Every draft after the first one makes the story stronger and more succinct. But the intimate, exhausting, exhilirating editing comes when the writer debates the nuance of every single word, considering whether there’s a better choice in a sea of words.
That’s where I am now. And I’m obsessed with it.
