What No one Tells You About Editing a Novel

And from the archives: From Stuck to Unstuck

**If you’re new to Mourning Pages, welcome! I am Penny Zang, an author, English professor, mom, and bookworm who is reading and writing my way through grief. My debut novel, Doll Parts, will be published in 2025. You can add it on Goodreads. Thanks for being here.**

---

Last time: Glimmer for March 2024

Photo by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash

“Does the process know we’re trusting it? Is the process in the room with us right now?”—Rebecca Armstrong, Artnest

Hello and good morning (I think it’s still morning).

I have been quiet lately, minding my business, avoiding social media and social life more than usual. It’s the culmination of several things: the end of the semester, Mercury Retrograde, out-of-town guests, and my first round of developmental edits for Doll Parts.

Before I move on, let me be clear that my edits are wonderful and spot-on and very, very exciting. My editor is fabulous and thoughtful, and I am so lucky. So grateful. It is the process of editing that has me in my head.

Here’s what no one tells you about editing a novel (on deadline, with a publisher): you can’t read anything else.

I mean, you can try. But good luck finding the brain power to even read the back of a cereal box. It’s an issue of focus, of all your concentration tunneling somewhere else. You can see how this would be especially difficult for someone who reads student essays, among other things, for a living.

If I’m being honest, it isn’t that I can’t read poetry or even short fiction (Lauren Groff’s collection of short stories, Florida, in small, measured doses, has saved me in the last weeks); it’s that I can’t fully immerse myself in narrative while my heart is inside my own book, teasing out timelines and patching plot holes. I’ve had a bit of luck with nonfiction, but I feel pretty certain that anything I have read in the last two months won’t stick with me by the end of the year.

*Note: I am a Bookshop.org affiliate and use affiliate links. If you purchase through my links, I may one day earn a small commission, or so I’ve been told.*

My recent reading issues started when a friend loaned me a book that is very much up my alley—creepy, suspenseful, full of dark academia vibes—and the voice of the book threatened to make their way into my own writing. Since then, I have started and stopped at least three other novels. Audiobooks aren’t helping either.

This isn’t the same as “book purgatory,” which I wrote about back in November after Hello Beautiful ruined me, at least for a little while, for other reading experiences. Book Purgatory is a state of limbo. My reading paralysis right now feels very temporary, very situational, but also like a means of survival. If I’m going to survive the otherwise fun and generative editing process, I have to make sacrifices. And it’s my reading life that must take the hit.

This problem with reading isn’t mine alone. Writer friends claim a similar ailment when editing. That’s where I got the idea to read poetry, though any reading outside of one’s genre might also help (hence my reliance on nonfiction lately).

So, while I get back to work and focus where I need to focus, I am sharing a post that feels especially timely. It was previously behind a paywall, but is now open for all— “Behind the Scenes: From Stuck to Unstuck.”

See that whale in the image above. You are likely to see him again if you stick around these parts.

Please read and enjoy and drop any encouragement in the comments so that I don’t become a complete zombie during final exams.

Subscribe if you haven’t already and look forward to some updates here soon!

Love, love, love.—Penny