Manuscript Resuscitation

I’m working on that revision. You know the one.

Time to turn that towering pile of crap into something I wouldn’t mind the neighbors seeing. (There’s also a notebook full of…well… notes to keep me on track.)

I’ve been working on getting my stuff together for a while, now. I have my outline, my note cards, my notebook, and a cup of coffee. So. Much. Coffee.

Obviously, I’m starting my day by cutting a minor character that I really liked. Trying to find some kind of order in the disaster. Taking what I wrote, and nailing it to the outline. Trying to remind myself that whatever I think of the thing, I’m probably wrong.

No, really. It’s just like hanging curtains. You find the first hook. Then, you find whatever is supposed to go on that hook. Then, the cat pounces on the material trailing out behind you, and the dog is chewing on the curtain rod… You get the picture. If I had children, I’m sure they’d be in there, somewhere. Paper airplanes and drawings of barns all over everything.

I’m going to run out of hooks before I run out of curtains, but with luck, I’ll have some kind of a structure by then.

Also, I have learned how to spell the word squirrel in the last week or so. There are no squirrels in this particular manuscript, but apparently, that doesn’t matter? It took me a second to figure out that what was wrong with the word is that there was no red line under it.

Never mind. I’m moving forward.

4 Comments

  1. Reply

    Joe Konrath once said that in the first draft, you give birth to all these great ideas, then second draft you kill them all in the crib. I don’t know why it seemed appropriate to mention that, but there you go…

  2. Reply

    Good luck! I love revising – sometimes it just feels like throwing all the words in the air and seeing where they land. I’ve tried it on occasion, and it works!

    • Reply

      I’ll be chopping up manuscript and seeing what gets taped back together. I love the moment when you realize you might actually have something people would **want** to read.

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