Loving the Revision Process

I must confess! During the dozens (maybe hundreds) of rewrites and revisions I performed on R.J.'s Story, I felt a sense of ruthless pleasure in dissecting the sentences and paragraphs, cutting this word, moving that phrase, in order to improve the overall manuscript. Once I saw how freely my consultants and editors hacked away at my work, I realized I could be equally hard on myself when reviewing my manuscript, because, in the end, the nitpicking would only take the story to a better place.

I cozied into writing Innocents, Book 2 of the Tales from Vowella series, knowing it was a major exercise in revision. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since I had written the original tales that were to be included in the book. I had created the concepts and tales during the first year of my massive project, when I was not only clueless about the world of writing, but also about the unexpected journey I would end up traveling.

I reviewed the first tale, Spaghetti Night, as well as its glaring red marks, which had been patiently hibernating since my first story consultation. I still liked the story. I understood the reasons for the red marks. And I envisioned what I needed to do in order to pick up crucial carryover elements from R.J.'s Story and move forward with the overall Heaven's Wait story. I decided it was better to rewrite Spaghetti Night on fresh pages, rather than to revise the existing file. I knew the sentences would flow from my head quite differently than they had at the beginning of my journey. And I knew I would be more inspired to embellish the story with fresh ideas if I didn't try to squeeze them into existing text.

When the first draft of Spaghetti Night was finished, I couldn't wait to go back and rip it apart. How many errors could I find? What could I do to clarify a particular situation? How many times could I reread the story and still find details that needed fixing?

It all sounds a little ruthless, but I feel such satisfaction when I see a piece of work evolve with each revision. Is that how editors feel when they work on clients' manuscripts?

The question is . . . am I protecting my creativity during the revision process? Am I allowing the ideas to freely flow from my head before I self-impose the criticism? I hope so! I try to control my urges to revise until I've gotten to the end of a tale (chapter.) But then, let me at those words! I can't wait to make the story better.