1. hard menial or dull work.

   “domestic drudgery”

   Synonyms:  hard work, menial work, donkey work, toil, toiling, labor, hard/sweated labor, chores, plodding

That’s the way these edits feel. They feel like beating a dead horse. I know the changes are necessary, the book will be better for them and I’m growing as a writer.

None of that makes it any easier. I think it’s the ‘growing as a writer’ that I’m struggling with the most. It’s not that I don’t want to make the changes, or grow, but it’s hard to make the changes. Bad habits are hard to break and every time these edits pit me against one of those bad habits, part of me wants to just ‘leave it’. “It’ll be fine,” I tell myself.

But do I want to be a fine writer, or do I want to be a good writer? I want to be a good writer, and that means I have to put in the work, even when it feels like drudgery.

My tips for beating the drudgery? What works best for me is breaking it up into small pieces. ‘I’m going to edit through page XYZ, or to the end of X scene.’ and then I rest my brain. Sometimes that means I only edit 10 pages per day, sometimes I can edit 10 pages take a break, and then edit 10 more pages all day long. I also try to read a lot – outside of the genre I’m writing – while I edit.