The Year of Submissions -the gearing up

I'm now gearing up for the submission onslaught. I've taken this last year off from submissions and am now attempting to whip my books into marketable shape. The battle is not going well, and the troops are demoralized a bit.

Before I can submit, I need to edit and I have to admit I am falling very very behind on my editing. Yes, it was very ambitious of me to decide I would edit all three “new” books in a matter of two months. But I’d say that deciding to work on one book while writing two others was also ambitious and I pulled that one off.

But editing seems to be dragging and I’m not sure why.

So, in true social scientist fashion- I will examine the possible options.(Those Psych degrees have to be good for something ;))

1) Lazy. Ok, this one has a lot of validity, and I’m admitting it here. I get lazy (anyone who doesn’t is lying….badly). What happens is I kind of race through something- say a book- then get all burned out. So that is a factor, but not the entire reason. Resolution: Suck it up buttercup and commit to a set time of editing each day. Going on my own retreat up to Santa Cruz next week- that should get a jump start on this issue.

2) Fear of failure. Hmmm- possible. Right now I’m in the “la-la” land of sitting on some books that haven’t been rejected yet. And one that has, but will be getting a serious over haul so it’ll be brand new and shiny again. Once I start submitting, the rejections will be a coming. For those of you who don’t write (or aren’t submitting yet ;)) lemme tell you, this is not a defeatist way to think- it’s reality. If you write for public consumption, you will get rejected-nuff said. But I have been mostly out of the rejection circuit for over a year now, so I need to pull on my Big Girl Panties and get on with it!

3) Fear of success. Now, logically, and from a psychological side, I get this one. Emotionally? Not so much. I really think I could learn to like success- alot. A WHOLE lot. BUNCHES. I seriously doubt this one is really a problem- although to be honest, when folks read and like my work I do sometimes get a wee freaked out. But this doesn’t even require BGP, think we can ignore this one.

4) Finishing my editing means I need to start something new. LOL- almost as non- existent as the previous one, but there could be tendrils curling around my psyche. I KNOW my current books. I love my current characters. New ones are going to take some breaking in time. But again- not so much a BGP issue.

5) Editing hurts my head. Yeah this one might have validity. I can get overwhelmed by a project, and just want to ignore it- so that may be what’s going on here. Trying to look at all the editing issues at once, instead of in stages. I can remove this problem by doing stages and stop freaking out to re-write every line.

Those are a lot of reasons-LOL, but knowing is half the battle, right?
Anyone out there suffering from editphobia? Have any solutions? How do you get moving on your edits?