Revising: My Self-Esteem Tilt-A-Whirl

This is what each chapter looks like when I start the revision process.

Eek. All I can see is what is wrong. What isn’t working. What was lazy writing.

I berate myself. I debate whether I suck at writing. And I get that completely-overwhelmed-by-the-task-ahead feeling.

That’s just during the first read through. Where I kill a red pen on my draft.

I’m on chapter 16 and I suddenly realize this happens with every chapter. LOL.

Suddenly, I see it as part of the process I’ve been going through these past six weeks.

Each chapter requires several rounds of edits before I’m satisfied.

Weirdly enough, the most important part may be the breaks between paper edits and typing edits to the draft.

The walk-away time seems to improve the edits exponentially. Because as I read, I identify problem areas, but I don’t always have a handle on what the problem is. Or a clue about how to fix it.

So while I’m practicing Chinese, drafting a blog post, or doing my chores, my mind keeps attacking it.

And then I come back to revise with all sorts of great ideas. And by the time I’m on my second or third run through the chapter, I’m almost impressed with myself.

I give myself a golf clap. Maybe I am a rockstar writer after all. Guess I was a little hard on myself.

But the seal of approval comes when my betas readers tell me what they loved and hated. What worked and didn’t. Then I know the chapter is good.

So I’m revising 30 or so pages a week. Which puts me on page 163 of 350 today. And gives me a self-esteem til-a-whirl ride 3 times a week (once for each chapter edited).

How do you revise your draft?

Revision Breakthrough

Last night, I had one of those nights. Where you think your writing just shits the bed. Something wasn’t working.

I read three pages of the scene over and over. It was wrongness squared.

I couldn’t tell you what was wrong, which made it impossible to fix. I walked away. Okay stalked away. I chewed my fingernails beyond the bleeding mark.

Gross.

And still I couldn’t figure out what was not working.

So I watched some Vampire Diaries. About 20 minutes into it. The answer came.

In the original draft, I’d worked out backstory there. I needed to do it. But now it felt clunky and unnecessary. During revision, I now sprinkled that backstory throughout the beginning. But I wanted to give it chronology.

The reader needed the entire timeframe. Sans repetition.

So I tinkered and toiled. Did ten drafts today. Until I understood why the scene was there and cut away what wasn’t needed. I polished one ugly ass stone. And found a lovely piece of quartz.

I delighted in my triumph.

I love the moments of blind panic punctuated by euphoria. The breakthrough moment. The AHA now I can fix it moment.

It’s what I live for in my writing.

Setting–my nemesis

I hate hate HATE writing setting. I can imagine the scene unfolding in my head. See all the background and the details.

But they always feel like background. Window dressing.

Never the meat and potato of the scene.

And while revising, I’ve giggled at myself. Because I saw the entire scene in my head. Envisioned all the details of the blue sky with shredded cotton scattered across it. Of my protagonist in her seafoam chiffon dress.

And none of that was written down. Because I was focused on capturing the dialogue. the emotion. the moment.

And as usual, setting took a backseat with me.

Thank God for editing and revising. For beta readers. For the opportunity to paint in the setting to bring the scene to life.

Mind you, dialogue used to be the bane of my existence. But after months of practice. Dialogue is my new bff.

Ah setting,  you remain my one true nemesis.

Finished a Manuscript

I’ve been working part time on an adult commercial fiction manuscript, TSTTW, since November 2009. It started out as a short story. Then it became chapter one of a novel.

I’ve had to put it aside for several months and then pick it back up as time allowed. Because my YA novel was complete and every time it received some feedback, I went into revision mode.

I was at 42K words in August for TSTTW. But I still saw ways to improve the YA book. So I stuck with that in October. Then I picked up TSTTW in November and got another 20K written.

But then more revisions were required on my YA manuscript. Major revisions that took up all my time until February.

In March, I decided to finish TSTTW draft. I wrote another 19k. Not my best writing. But a first draft. 1K words a day, 5 days a week. And in a month I finished my first draft of TSTTW.

It is an indescribably wonderful feeling. To finish a manuscript I’ve toiled over. Pride. Completeness. Satiation. They all flooded my system. I felt like I could take on the world and win. I felt indestructible. And I knew I could do anything I set my mind to.

Still everything I wrote in March is, well, rough. Think tree bark with eight inch thorns sticking out of it. So I have to take this week and do some editing/revising. Removing the thorns.

Then in April, I start major revisions. Stripping away the bark to reveal wood. Smoothing it until I can build a bookcase out of it.

I know wisdom says let it sit for a few months. But the first 150 pages were drafted before July 2010. So they’ve been sitting around for months. Waiting to be tended to. Pruned.

And I have feedback from auction critiques. Ready to be applied.

So I’m going to start revising.

But this weekend, I basked in the elation of completing my manuscript.

The bones are all there. Now I just have to attach the muscles and skin. Form a living breathing being.

It feels awesome squared.

The best part about writing the ending?

The surprises the characters gave me. Showing up where I didn’t anticipate them being. Changing the final scene completely. Telling me how it happened and why I was wrong to see it any other way.

Hitting Your Groove

Did you ever read a draft of something you wrote and feel vaguely unhappy with it? Like an outfit that doesn’t work but you can’t say what isn’t working. Worse still, every time you try to pinpoint the source of the problem, it escapes your grasp. So you couldn’t say something is wrong, but in your gut you feel it isn’t right? So you jot down a note with a broad indicator like: not flowing, awkward, character feels weird.

You hope that on the next read through, these words will trigger something in your mind and you’ll be able to explain what is wrong and fix it.

Inevitably, when I walk away and start doing something else, a tiny part of my mind keeps mulling it over. Until Eureka! I know exactly what I don’t like/what is wrong with the passage.

Then the revisions come fast and furious. Like someone else is guiding my hand. Suddenly I know with utmost certainty what doesn’t belong and what needs to be fixed. I slap myself in the forehead for not seeing it sooner. New word choices, better sentence structure, cut redundancies.

In the end, I feel extremely satisfied with my work. Exhausted from working hard, I lay on the couch to watch tv until sleep became an absolute necessity.

Does it take you a while to identify what is not working in your writing? How do you handle the revision process?