Thankful Thursday—Finding a Way Out

Revision is hard.

Sometimes you think you've finally made it. Connected all the dots. Smoothed out all the rough edges. Fit all the pieces together.

Sometimes you think you are DONE.

And then you get an e-mail from your brilliant editor.

She asks a question. Just something for you to consider.

At first you think. Nope! Nothing to consider. That change would never work. It would make the entire book fall apart. Sorry! No can do! (Yes, I know I would never actually say "no can do", but I have wanted to from time to time)

And yet...

This is your editor. She is really smart. If something's bothering her... there's probably a really good reason.

You e-mail your trusted readers, nearly begging them to agree with you. But even you can sense the hesitation. You can hear them thinking through the internet waves. I don't know, Jo. She might be onto something...

Crap.

You sleep on it.

And you wake up knowing your editor really is onto something. The only trouble is, all you can think about is how much WORK it will be to fix.

And you look out the door and you think. Yeah. This is pretty much my life right now.



You really truly feel as if there is NO WAY OUT.

You are stuck.

SOoooooo stuck.

But then... you pour yourself a glass of wine. And you ask your very patient husband—who of course insists that you shouldn't make the change, because YOU are the one who is brilliant, and oh, you love him so much for that—to listen to you talk out the problem.

You define what the "big thing is" that you're trying to achieve. And then you start to think of other ways to illustrate it. And you talk and talk and your husband listens and listens and asks questions. You come up with scenario after scenario and go nowhere. You think you might cry. You think you might need another glass of wine.

But then you think deeper. Think more internally about the characters and their flaws. You come up with one word that defines the part of them that leads them to make the big mistake that your editor thinks you should change.

OK. So what else could they do? What other act would illustrate this flaw? Think about the characters. Who are they really? What do they themselves need so much that it would lead them to make this big mistake? What is it that they need so badly?

And then suddenly you can feel it. You can see them in your mind's eye doing that new thing. And you want to scream YES! That's perfect!

And your husband says, YEAH! That would work!

And the rightness of it hits you like a wonderful, warm beam of light and you swear you hear angels singing. And your husband looks at you like you've finally completely lost your mind.

But you don't care. Because you've done it. You've found the other door out.



And then you collapse with the relief of it all. Because it's all going to be OK. In fact, it's going to be even better.

And you think about calling your editor to tell her how amazing and brilliant and wonderful she is. But then you remember she's calling you tomorrow, and you can tell her then. Today, you've been given nine straight hours of home-alone time to work on your freelance job, and you really can't squander another minute.

Except to say. PHEW!