Anyone want to take a guess at it?

Some would say edits. Edits can get stale, yes, but they are just part of the job. Yes, if there's a particularly tricky revision desired, it can get tedious. But they just exist, and are part of an author's life.

Promotions? Meh. I don't so much mind promotions. I'm not particularly good at it, but if I had someone to tell me step-by-step what to do, I wouldn't mind them at all.

Rejection. Again, nope. Rejection's part of the game. Sure they can be crushing, but it isn't the worst part of being an author.

For me, the worst part of my job is...

Never-ending, constant, overwhelming, idea generation.

My critique partners and beta readers give me grief about being prolific, and having super-fast fingers. All in good humor, but often enough to make me blush. Sometimes, I've heard, "I wish I could write as fast as you...."

Trust me, no you do not. Because what drives the speedy fingers is this constantly buzzing flow of information in my head that spins ideas like spiders spin webs. Daily. Hourly. To the point I have to deliberately shut it off. I can't count the number of times I've sat here and caught a snippet off my son's cartoons to find myself starting down the mental journey of: "Ohh, wouldn't it be cool..."

When I start trekking down YA and Childrens', I have to put the brakes on my brain.

In the last week I've developed three romance ideas. I have a fourth that popped in and is lurking in the side of my head (I can feel it tugging right above my right ear!) that I'm deliberately not acknowledging.

Keep in mind, the current ideas I already have lined up, put me into September of this year as it is. And that's usually just books 1 and 2 of whatever project I've lined out.

The ones that are really solid get logged into a folder on my hard drive that grows exponentially to my completed titles. The ones I absolutely can't set aside get put in a different folder which ends up being my "farm team" for the folder of completed files.

I need three of me. But only one of me can have the ability to think for myself. The other two must not come equipped with the ability to make decisions for myself. They must have everything that makes me me, but be able to take strict directive from the first me.

I was asked this week, "How fast can you put a book together." My answer of 30-45 days made the next comment, which was intended to be "Well, [publisher] expects two books a year," moot. My answer -- no problem. I wrote seven last year.

While that might sound good on the surface. The deeper issue is, for every book I compose, I have a minimum of 5 new ideas. And my "To do" list never gets any shorter. Which, for a former project manager, is a hard swallow. My boxes to check off as complete outweigh my accomplishments easily double and that only makes me want to work harder. Faster.

Eeesh.

So, that's the worst part. Too many ideas. Not enough Me.

That said, I am off to work on said paranormal listed on the tracking meter here.

~Claire
www.claireashgrove.com
www.toristclaire.com