did i really just do that?

Part of my love-hate relationship with reading and writing is how time-consuming they both are. Especially reading. In fact, college made it so that I have a very small attention span for anything longer than 30 pages. But I figured if I'm ever going to write a novel, I'm going to have to read some. So a month ago or so I started rereading Fear of Flying, which I'd started over a year ago but never finished. (I'm really close now.)

Reading takes so long for me because of how active I am about it. When I write, I write a sentence, then read it over, then edit it, then write another sentence, then read it over, then edit it, then read the two sentences together and edit them, then write a third sentence - if I get a page written in one day it's been a good day. And that's exactly how I read, reading it like I wrote the thing myself, often with little regard for plot or content - just analyzing the language and the rhythm. Which often causes me to have to read a page over and over and over again until I remember to pay attention to what the characters are actually doing and saying.

I'm not usually too bad about it, but just now, on page 321 of a 20th century masterpiece of a novel, I crossed the line. I line-edited someone else's work. The work of a bestselling author. Yeah.

Jong writes, "Randy and Pierre drove me from the airport in the hearse-black, air-conditioned Cadillac which they'd shipped over from the States." Without even realizing what I was doing until it was done, I'd scratched a thin line through the word "which."

That book has been out for over 3o years. The edition I have includes rave reviews from Henry Miller and John Updike. And I'm streaking red ink all over it like I'm in workshop.

And my perfectionism finds yet another evil within itself.