Around when his eyes start to sting and his head begins to throb, Louis realizes he misses the writing process and very much prefers it to the editing process. Fondly, he remembers that the former was like this:
-Louis sits down at his computer and rereads the pages he wrote the previous day (or the day before that, or the one before that, etc.).
-He then remembers what he wanted to happen next. He contemplates the next pages, running them through a complex, mental filter.
-He then starts awake and remembers that he decided what he wanted to happen and how best to execute it around when he dozed off.
-Ready now, he starts. With “Then.” Or no-wait. “But then again.” Ah yes. That’s right. “But then again.”
-Satisfied with this start, Louis gets up and locates a snack.
-He returns to find “But then again” and sighs deeply.
-He starts awake again and realizes he needs to brainstorm.
-He lies down on his bed to do so.
In contrast, editing is a far more constant and steady business that is frighteningly portable (like Pokémon), so that it can dominate your life even when you think you’re safe (likePokémon).
And so, Louis squints at the red mess of a particularly bad page and realizes that there are no snacks. There is no “brainstorming” required. There is only the deed, so glaringly simple now (as it is, in fact, simply transcribing corrections from his massive hand edit to his computer).
But then again…
House of Error 