I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The finish line. Mount doom. The end is near and I have to say, I think I’m getting the hang of this whole revision thing. Sure, I still tend to burn myself out and then struggle to do anything creative but that isn’t the revision’s fault. I do it with writing too. This book may have been exactly what I needed at the exact right time for me to learn how to revise. I’ve noticed that my books are usually what I need when I need them.
Progress
I started and finished all of Knox’s POV this month and succeeded in cutting a couple of thousand words from it. There is a chance that I will end up with a manuscript that is less than 150k after this round of revision though it will be close. I took a little bit of a break around Thanksgiving to spend time with my family and didn’t do any revision at all. Then a couple of days before the end of the month, I started working on Poe’s POV. I started with 123 pages in Poe and then there are another 17 pages where everything else comes together so I started with 140 pages in total left for the manuscript and I ended November with 122 pages left. That is less than a quarter of the total page count of the manuscript. I can feel the momentum and that I’m almost done with this revision.
I’ve also continued to meet with my writing accountability partner and that has been tremendously helpful not only in writing but in other areas such as reading and art. I often fail to take time to do the other things I’m interested in because writing always takes precedence. However, I’ve had a goal to read for at least 30 minutes every evening and do some sort of art every day, for the last two weeks. It has helped me to give myself some more time for leisure and feel a sense of accomplishment in doing so.
What I’m Learning
I feel as though I am continually learning the same lessons in different modes. One that has been present this month is the need for rest. Perhaps the reason it keeps surfacing is that I really haven’t learned it. On the one hand I know I need rest but actually giving myself rest isn’t something I naturally do. I continue to push and push until I burn out completely and am forced to rest or something like Thanksgiving rolls around and I know I’m not going to get anything done so I deem that it’s fine to take some time off and I come back feeling refreshed. I’ve spent so much of my life pushing myself past my limits and trying to be “on” all of the time that it is extremely hard to let myself turn off. It is going to be a continued struggle.
Leisure
Thanksgiving and the surrounding days were a time of leisure for me. Sure, there were the “mandatory fun” things I participated in but they weren’t all bad. We went shopping, bowling, played croquet, ate lots of pie, watched the parade, and the dog show, and visited. Which, after not seeing my parents for over a year was quite a blessing. I also got to spend a significant portion of my time reading and doing art, which I enjoyed. I’m currently rereading Enders Game by Orson Scott Card and it is as brilliant as ever. With my art, I could still participate in the conversation around me, or just listen as I am apt to do, while I drew.
I haven’t created an art habit in the way I’ve created a writing habit and the difference in my skills in both areas bears that out. I’ve always done art sporadically at best and there have been large swaths of time when I’ve done none at all. I’m hoping my daily art habit continues as I am already seeing real results. The switch from analog to digital art has quite a learning curve and that put me off for quite a while but I’m slowly warming to it and I’ll probably get used to it just in time for AI to take over art completely. Then I’ll have to make analog art again.
I also went to Neil Gaiman’s Literary Presentation at Lehigh University, which was wonderful. I am still working on putting together some of my thoughts from the event, which I will post when it is finished. His words are always magical and he even answered my question as one of the ten or so he picked. All in all, I had a great time. Keep an eye out for my blog on that.
Looking Forward
I am very hopeful right now. My mood has a tendency to swing around quite a lot, but currently I feel peace and hope. It is a lovely way to feel. I think it may be a result of actually having some rest and time off, but who can really tell.
I look forward to finishing this revision which I would love to finish before December 15th though if it’s a couple of days late I won’t be too upset. That would mean revising a little over eight pages a day on average. This is a pretty good clip and I know the next stretch might be a lot of rewrites, so we’ll see if I end up actually writing that fast or not. Either way, I should finish the draft by the end of the month. Then it’s off to my writing group for a second round of critiques for a few weeks.
I have to admit, I have a new idea that has more than just formed. I spent some of the time over Thanksgiving brainstorming and worldbuilding a new idea. I had meant to go on with a different project once I finished the revision on my current manuscript but then this idea came along. I blame Coriolanus Snow for it. I’ve never wanted to write a young adult novel but there is something about dystopian and darkness that speaks to me. This new story is a big part of why I am rereading Ender’s Game too. I want some aspects of Ender, some of Corio, and some of my own sort of philosophy. It is an enticing story already and I just have to do my best not to spend too much time on it before I finish revisions. I’m really holding myself back with this one. However, it may just be the push I need to finish these last 122 pages.
