Don’t get me wrong. I love writing craft books, and in fact, as the two I’m working on now are almost finished, I’m already starting to think about the next book deal I hope to land. I love ticking away at my keyboard, coming up with new jewelry designs, sketching them out and then working through various prototypes until they are successful, and working with editors and artists who are involved in the whole book writing process.

But, that’s the glamorous side of the craft and jewelry book writing biz.

Then there are days, like yesterday, that I get chapters back from my project editor, and it’s time for the review process. Often other editors, like a technical editor and copy editor, have reviewed the text and made comments and corrections for me to fix. And my once beautifully typed chapters, complete with format codes, have become, well, down right ugly (as in ugh-lee!)

As I finished one chapter, bing, bang, “you’ve got mail,” more were coming! And this was supposed to be the official first day of my school summer vacation. Who is going through editorial notes on their first day off of work? I should have been outside reading a book or having lunch with one of the many friends I hadn’t been able to see for the past 4 months. But, no, there I was, chained to my computer for the day, trying to figure out what exactly I meant to say months ago in the how-to bead chapters I was getting back.

I managed to get through all but one chapter, that I’m almost done with and will finish today no matter what, and after thinking about it last night, I realized that this is all part of doing what I love to do, so get over myself already. With the good comes the bad and the ugly, and once I finish with the ugly today, it will all be good again, and I will be outside reading after all.