Revising Revision

For the last several months, I’ve been revising and editing my Western Historical, Elsa and the Tie-down Man. It was completed several years ago and I struggled with editing after completion. Mostly, I struggled because I didn’t really know how to go about it. So, true to form, I started reading any how-to book on the subject I could find.

Many helped, but I still felt lost. I had a friend who was kind enough to help at first, but as happens that didn’t last long. I knew it was something I had to do, so I kept struggling with the job. And I struggled for those first few months when there was the niggly hint of my illness, when nothing was really wrong, but things weren’t right.

You know the rest of the story and after I packed up not only this book, but also all the others I had been either submitting or working on, I really didn’t think about the book. That was the whole reason I packed it away. To get it out of my head and conscience. So it would stop nagging me. I couldn’t deal with that at the time.

I’ve been ready to work on the book for some time now and I procrastinated for an awful long time without really understanding why. Finally, I started the revision and editing again, but I dragged my feet a bit for reasons I couldn’t understand. I blamed it on fear that I’d get in the middle and the stupid MPGN would return. I blamed it on the thought that Western Historicals just aren’t being published. (Kaki, blew that out of the prairie (thank goodness, she proved that wrong.) I just didn’t understand my hesitation and jerky progress. I know why now and I think I found a cure.

I have found this to be true over and over. Maybe, it is the old saying—when the student is ready, the teacher will come. All I know is in all the editing and revising books I’ve read and there have been several good ones, I just didn’t get it. It didn’t clear up the path. And for me (obsessive-compulsive and a list maker (ad nauseam) I just couldn’t get a road map that made sense to me. I find this to be true with everyone at one time or another. I really think it just takes the right way of saying it for a person, and the right time, etc.

All the muddle and confusion I’ve felt, that lost I-don’t-know-what-to-do-or-where-to-go feeling is gone. That feeling of muddling along and confusion was so much a part of the MPGN and after effects and treatment. I wasn’t sure I would ever get some things (my mind or writing) back. I wondered (and worried) if the edit and revision dilemma was part of that.

Who knows? All I do know is I’m grateful I picked up James Scott Bell’s book, Revision & Self-Editing: Techniques for transforming your first draft into a finished novel. It is one of the Write Great Fiction series put out by Writer’s Digest Books. How can I ever thank someone who opened my eyes and gave me such a great road map? I don’t know if I was just ready to understand or if it was the way Bell explained things, (I think Bell has a very no-nonsense, everyman way of writing.) In either case, I wish I’d learned this, months ago.

I could kick myself, but I decided that would be a huge waste of time. I’ve wasted enough. My plan of attack is to finish out what I was doing. Then go back and do exactly what Bell advised.
What a wonderful book on revision and self-editing, such clear, concise explanations that made sense to me. A checklist in the back of the book fits right into my way of thinking and doing, but every chapter will make me a better writer, even with my first draft, I think. So I am rolling up my sleeves and better yet, I know where I’m going and how I’m going to get there.

And I think before I begin a new book I owe it to myself to read James Scott Bell’s book on Plot and Structure (another area I’ve had a hard time learning from the books I’ve read so far) If it helps as much as Revision & Self-editing did, my next book will writing with a lot less wrong turns.