I am so depressed

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I am editing a novel I've finished writing and it is taking so long. I am losing motivation. I hope that although my novel is only average in length it is epic in scale.

My novel covers Asperger's syndrome, depression, psychiatric hospitals, suicide, housing conditions, political and police corruption, violence, music, differences between urban and rural life, romance, aging, childhood, the environment, the difficulty of using buses, the ignorance of lawyers, friendship and betrayal, the hollow reality of the idealized nuclear family, how illogical criminal courts are, people's eating habits and health outcomes; and much more.

I have read War and Peace and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and I like to think I am writing a book just as epic but at a length anyone can manage. One of the only things I'm good at is thinking and so many of my thoughts have been put into the book - ideas, inspirations, flights of fancy, wishes, dreams, hopes, fears, tangents.

The book is almost finished but it has to be edited. So far only 1/10 of it has been and that 1/10 is much better to read than it was before. It is really boring though. There is not much creative joy like there is in scrawling the first draft. It is like being an inspector of your own self; oh look, I wrote that sentence in a way that doesn't roll off the tongue. Ah, that sounds a bit forward - could be more formal. Do I need to use a more learned word here so the sentence seems less conversational? - Etc.

Maybe it doesn't help that my life in general has been so lonely and dull the past few years.

Hi, it can't just be one novel. I mean, like it a musician writes one song and even if it's really great, he or she does a heck of a lot better to keep writing.

And Stephen King once said that after finishing a long book, he sometimes likes to do a short story.

PS I think the part that most jumps out at me is "the hollow reality of the idealized nuclear family." Yes! Someone else is finally going to say it. But please don't tell me too much, either to give it away or I don't want your thunder to get stolen in talking about it.

I also get depressed when I'm between projects. When I finished editing my first novel earlier this year I sank into a deep funk. It took me a few months to climb out of it. I started writing again about three months ago. I hope to release the novel in 2014.

Now, I sometimes struggle with depression, too. And I'm sure you know a lot, but there may also be things you don't know.

A general practitioner doctor once told my mom, about herself, that depression can start off situational and become biochem. And to me this has the ring of truth.

Robin - I suppose writers have to endure strange work schedules. I like your photos of Seattle on your website, by the way.

Aardvark - It could very easily be true that depression begins from a situation and becomes settled as an imbalance in the brain.

I have not yet tried antidepressants, but they are kind of my ace in the hole. And what I've read, it's trial and error in a respectful sense. That zoloft, for example, might work great for some people and not do a thing for others. And no doctor in the world can predict in advance. And . . . I don't think doctors are near enough upfront and forward with this like they probably should be.

So realistically, it's a matter of being willing to go through a series of antidepressants. And, it can be important to step down in phases even if the medication doesn't seem to be working.

And with art, I really encourage branching out and going beyond the trap of perfectionism.

Sigmund Freud worked on two books at the same time (at least at one point), each at a different desk, and moved back and forth between them as the spirit moved him.

After the success of the original Star Wars in 1977, George Lucas said he was going to do some experimental stuff. He might have had more fun if he had! and still made plenty of money.

And Beethoven's 9th Symphony was described by Encyclopedia Britannica as flawed but like a mountain stream rushing past its flaws. I might take it a step further and say the "flaws" might actually be texture.

I took a screenwriting class, and the teacher said, not that I might put it in, but if there's a ragged part say around page 90, I might leave it in. Then if they tell me . .. well, okay. It's a part I wanted to correct anyway. Again, maybe a step further, a slow part or a boggy part might actually make the whole thing better.

I've read Anna Karenina (love that book). I would like to recommend two books that I have used that have helped me figure out writing and editing, and has made doing it alone all the more easier:
Make a Scene by Jordan and the Fire in Fiction by Donald. Another one I like is The Writer's journey: Mythic structure--which I'm too lazy to link, to. These 3 books the first two in the particular made editing much more easier for me.

I also like to note that when editing is boring sometimes it's a sign that your story is boring. My rule of thumb is, if I am editing and something is really going slow, then it may be that it's boring--really boring and I need to do some revision. It could also mean I am suffering burn out and NEED to take a break. Sometimes looking at it again after a few days or weeks or months with fresh eyes reminds me how brilliant I am or how---unbrilliant I am.

As is guessable, I write too and have been working on editing a series of novels for the past nearly 8 years if not longer (that is if I consider the other pieces that will go with it). Yes, editing a novel can feel very boring, a lot of drudgery and a lot of editing. It will for instance take me I estimate 1-2 more years to finish editing this series I have at the pace I am going...but you know what that is OK.

Gone with the Wind took many many years to write and was a national seller.

Game of Thrones is notorious for taking many years to write, especially between sequels. I particularly like this writer because even though we are very different I can relate to him, his reasoning and his process 100%. Right now it's taking him years to finish his last book and people keep asking: Are you done yet? He's exhausted with being asked, someone compared them asking him for the book to the idea that he is a drug dealer and readers are drug addicts and he's the only one who can supply them with their fix---this cheered me up, because I realized I too have been working on my novels for a very long time.

So I came up with this Motto: You're right on time, to remind me that I'm right on time with my novel, and the only thing that will stop me finishing it is if I die before my time.

I also like to remind myself that many of the greats became famous after they died, and that even if I did die I could be like Emily Dickinson or Edgar Allan Poe which isn't very appealing. Then there is the, more sad thing that I remind myself in that everything I write today will be forgotten in a few short years if not hundreds of years from now, and that in the grand scheme everything we humans do is rather quite trivial, buuut t hat doesn't always help.

@Winner - Thanks for the compliment.