When you don't want to revise your memoir

You hang that laundry that your eighteen year old son and sixteen year old daughter could very well hang, if you just ask them. You take extra care to uncrease the wrinkles and hang them just so on the hangers. You wonder where all the hangers in the house go when you buy at least twenty each week.

You ask yourself what your potential ghostwriting clients always tell you, “Why would anyone want to read my story?”

You remind yourself what you tell your clients, “Because it’s there.”

Oh, wait. We are not talking about scaling Mount Everest, though it sure feels like it today. You actually say, “Because if you don’t, no one else will. Or if someone does, they will get your story all wrong.”

You actually start believing your pep talk so you finish the laundry and boot up your computer.

You remember that you already have a cover that needs a memoir. You look at it and get excited all over again.

You look at your draft, the one with the killer opening chapters but unrevised following chapters, and fall into despair because revising everything through seems like an impossible task.

You check Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MSN News and – goodness, she’s marrying him?

You check your e-mail, which hasn’t changed since ten minutes ago.

You download the latest Scrivener update, when you could very well just stick to Word, nearly crash your computer, panic for one moment because it looks like you might have lost your files. Then you find them.

You get an extra burst of energy revising the document you almost lost. You promise never to take your beloved manuscript for granted. Ever again. Until the next round of self-doubt hits you.

You copy and paste your manuscript into Scrivener and wonder if you will ever get to seriously revising it, or if you are just going to keep deleting paragraph returns.

You finally run out of distractions and excuses.

You revise the dang thing.

Jewel Allen is an award-winning journalist, author, ghostwriter, poet, councilwoman, and mom. Visit her website at www.jewelallen.com.