Crunch Time

That grueling rewrite. Yep. They happen.

If you love writing, you most likely enjoy, well, the writing part. As I have written here before, many writers are not crazy about the editing part, doing revisions. But I have encouraged everyone to learn to love the process, if you don't already. Why? Because editing/revising is where the real satisfaction comes. Getting it right. Sure, wending our way through a first draft is fun, even exciting, as we discover ways the story is going that we did not expect even when working from an outline. Finishing that first draft feels terrific! No doubt.

Then the terror sets in. I suspect for some, this is simply because they know editing is hard work and they are, frankly, lazy. So, they dread revising the work. That's a personal issue, one that does not befit a serious writer. So, I will not address it other than to say that if you dread rewrites because you don't really want to do the work, you might be in the wrong business. As I have said many times, editing is maybe not where the magic happens, but it is where the magic all comes together.

All of that said, even the most serious writers confront the occasional "Oh, this one's going to be a bitch." And so that dread is real--at least based on something tangible: You know you have a lot of hard work ahead. But again, serious writers are not lazy, just weary at times like those. There are a few ways to deal with that hesitation and procrastination that appear on rewrites we know will require a lot of fixing to get them right. Unlike the novel that "writes itself"--and those happen and are lovely--the difficult rewrite is a different beast.

On rare occasion, the best course of action might be--as painful as it is--to just abandon the project. Admit that it is never going to work, never going to be all that you wanted it to be or what you foresaw, and just let it go. But I say never abandon it completely. Wait a while, years if necessary, then go back and try to see what you saw in it in the first place, what you thought it would be, what you tried to make it, then how, where, and why you did not achieve that vision. If you can answer those questions, you can probably save the manuscript, though at that point, you may not want to. You may prefer to work on another first draft that needs a good going-through or start something entirely new. Either is fine.

We have to be honest with ourselves. Some ideas are/were just not all that great. Some sucked. Some we just could not get right. Some had a kernel of something cool or good, but the execution failed for any number of reasons. We all have those. It does not mean WE suck. It just means we had good intentions but came up short, either in execution or in overvaluing the concept, or in chasing what we thought was a good concept only to find 60,000 words later that it was not. Sure it seems like time wasted, but we can learn from that, too. Why did we overvalue the idea? Why did we keep writing when we knew we were not getting there, not improving it, not getting it right. Why could we not see?

Again, setting aside the wild goose chase and other reasons to avoid revising new work (or old work that we revisit and decide has merit and therefore want to try again), what about the work that we feel mostly good about but know has some serious problems? If we think the problems are solvable through what will be some soul-grinding days of fixing and re-fixing, we can't be lazy or fearful. We just need to dive in, knowing we will get to that chapter that is a sonofabitch and will not be beaten by it. We will find the solution. We will make it work. And we WILL make it right.

I had one of those demonic chapters this week. I knew it was going to be difficult to fix, that it would need a lot of work. I would have to change characters around, even their names. I would have to re-order the events. I would have to cast out those elements that no longer fit because the chapter had originally been the opening but is now one quarter of the way from the end. Those are huge changes, and I knew they would be difficult to fix. BUT! Because I have been doing this forever, I dreaded it for only a day (after the occasional dreading moment over a few weeks), then chose my time and dug in. It took two long days of changing and toying and moving and rethinking to get those three pages to work. I did not get it right the first or second pass. But by pass three, I mostly had it. One last polish and it worked beautifully in the new location, giving power to that chapter and that section of the book that it never could have given as the opening. Everything is better now because of not fearing it but facing it, determined to make it work because 1) I knew I had to or throw the MS away, which I am loathe to do, 2) I felt strongly that it was not a lost cause, and that 3) I have done this so many times, I had confidence I could get through it. And I did.

To be clear: IT WAS NOT EASY. It was a pain in the ass. But the rewards are that it worked out. It now feels right. It fits in with the style and flow, actually helps the pacing amazingly well, and provides a launching point for the "action packed exciting" conclusion. :)

So, if you have not fought your way through one of these tough revision days or weeks, know that they are survivable. I promise! They require more thinking and self-conspiring, but they are worth the effort. If, at the end of the process, you have succeeded in saving work you thought you might have to abandon, and it even makes the overall work better, there is no better feeling than that. You made magic happen. Better than that first rush of the first draft. As I constantly harp on, revisions are the key to success and ultimately offer the greatest rewards for the serious writer. Dig in, don't give up, figure it out, and make it work. You will be happy you did.