20 Editing Musts

The twenty necessary steps to surviving the editing hole:

1) Make sure you have enough food in the house to last you at least a week.

2) Make sure your food ordering apps are up to date.

3) Make sure you have enough coffee to make it to Mars.

4) Set reminders in your phone so you know when to shower.

5) Are you really sure you have enough coffee?

6) Set achievable daily goals.

7) Tear the goals up when you realize you were delusional.

8) When was the last time you ate a vegetable?

9) Make sure you have someone you can call to go buy you more coffee.

10) Remember, no matter how horrible you think your manuscript is, deleting the whole thing is never a good idea.

11) Remind yourself that wine does not count as eating a serving of fruit.

12) I should have warned you to stock up on antacids.

13) You should probably brush your teeth before you have more coffee.

14) Yes fantasy really is spelled F-A-N-T-A-S-Y even though it looks totally wrong.

15) Wine and coffee should not be on your desk at the same time.

16) Throw out your delivery food boxes.

17) Smell hope in the air as you near the end of the manuscript.

18) Have one more breakdown and sob in the corner just for good measure, add coffee if it's between the hours of 3pm and 2:30pm.

19) Click "save" on the file and back it up everywhere you can.

20) Fall asleep next to your glass of wine.

FIN