The Two Voices in My Head (Otherwise Known as Editing)

There are two of me.

One leans in close, eyes wide with quiet awe, and whispers, “Oh, that line… that’s the one. That’s why we write. Keep it. Frame it. Tattoo it on your soul.”

The other slams the brakes, rolls its eyes, and mutters, “Cut it, you blathering fool. You’re drunk on your own adjectives again. It doesn’t move the story forward. It’s fluff. Beautiful fluff, sure, but fluff nonetheless.”

And so the argument begins. Again. And again.

This, for me, is the true heart of editing. Not glamorous. Not tidy. Not the mythic process where everything ‘clicks’. No, it’s mostly internal brawling between the part of me that falls in love with the words, and the part that suspects love is a trap. One crafts. The other cuts. Both are necessary. And both, frankly, can be exhausting.

There’s a peculiar kind of madness that comes with reading your own work after the thrill of the first draft has faded. You no longer see it as a story, you see it as a series of decisions you made. Some of those decisions feel inspired. Others? Haunting. (Who let me use three metaphors in one sentence? Was I possessed?)

And yet, somehow, that tension between voices is where the work gets sharper. Better. Truer.

Some days, the voices find common ground. Other days, I just surrender to the silence and let the words sit, like ghosts in the gloaming, waiting to be seen properly.

You’re not mad.
You’re just a writer.