Once More With Feeling

[image error]“Half my life is an act of revision.” John Irving

This week I’m revising. (Double Danger, coming Jan. 2013) Taking a scalpel to my work and trying to make it better. But sometimes it is like killing my children or at least bits of myself. My words, each carefully thought out to make a perfect sentence take on a life of their own after I write them, and it takes a certain frame of mind to butcher them with both precision and purpose.

“I can’t write five words but that I change seven.” Dorothy Parker

For me the editing process is always ongoing, as I work I edit. As I move forward in the story I go back and edit. As I write a sentence part of my mind is reminding me that I’ve just used that word or phrase or gesture five paragraphs ago. I find writing the story difficult at times but always thrilling. I find revising my work painful. ALWAYS.

“Books aren’t written- they’re rewritten. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.” Michael Crichton

But in the end, if I can just persevere, I always find that I’ve got a better book. Leaner, meaner. Fundamentally better. But never done. No matter how much I tinker, there is always something left that could be tighter, stronger, more–something… If it weren’t for deadlines, I’d probably never actually finish a book at all.

“Books are never finished, they are merely abandoned.” Oscar Wilde

So thank goodness for deadlines. And editors. And the weird workings of my brain. Okay…back to the scalpel.

How do you feel about the art of fine-tuning? Your book, your closet, your job, your life? Revising isn’t just for writers, you know.