How Writing Is Like Cleaning The Floor

A good friend of mine recently wrote an article about the things no one ever tells you to expect once you become published. One item that stuck with me is how, when you're editing your work,

you begin to notice how messy your house has become while you were in the giddy, creative stage of writing your manuscript. And your awareness of the filth and clutter becomes more acute the deeper into the editing process you go. Suddenly, corralling that recalcitrant dust-bunny becomes more important than eliminating that dangling participle. 

Case in point: I spent the weekend putting the final polish on my WIP. I'd painstakingly gone through the process of verifying every scene against my self-imposed checklist over the past few weeks, and I was finally able to dump it out of Scrivener and into a word document, where I set about formatting it and polishing it up. The final step in the editing process started yesterday, and I had a sudden urge to clean the kitchen floor. Usually housekeeping is so far down on my to-do list I can't see it because of the piles of rubble that build up during the exciting, creative phase. And my kitchen floor is probably as old as I am, and it takes forever to make it presentable. Kind of like me getting ready to go somewhere.

Kind of like the process of taking a manuscript and getting it ready to submit. Hmmm....

First, I sweep the floor. That's the easy, breezy part and I can actually see progress being made. The flash draft.

Second, I clean the floor, using a Swiffer machine and liquid cleanser. The first-read-through.

Third, because the floor is old and full of crevices to make it look like it's something it's not, I have to use bleach to really clean the nooks and crannies in the ancient tile. Then, I have to rinse. My checklist, where I am aware of the senses, duplication of words, words I overuse, or which are telling. That kind of thing.

Finally, I polish the floor to a healthy, clean-looking shine. Formatting the manuscript and the final read-through.

See what I mean? And, yes, I CAN make an analogy out of just about anything.