revisions

I coaxed myself through the whole rough draft process of Untitled with the promise of revisions. I've always liked revisions because I'm working with something that already exists, already has structure. I always thought it was easier than plucking words out of nowhere.

But.

My revising brain's still off on vacation, so this first round is a mess. Not organizationally. I use Scrivener to write: all my chapters are separated and summarized, labeled with dates and notes and to-do lists. I have a master list, a color-code system.

But my method is a disaster.

My mom and grandma play a duet version of "Sleigh Ride" every Christmas Eve -- it's a long tradition -- and this year I'm trying to learn the secondo part. It's weird because my ears know the piece perfectly from years and years of listening, but my hands don't know it at all. So I've been playing it with my mom every night, and most nights I end up completely lost at some point. But since I know how it's supposed to sound, I usually just plunk along, lost, banging out whatever chords and notes my hands find until I somehow get back on track.

This is how I'm revising right now, too. I have my sheet music -- aka my organized notes and lists -- but I'm kind of just bouncing through the manuscript, lost, picking random scenes to tweak and twist, probably not hitting the right notes at all.

I think this is a sign that I need to take a break, but I keep having this delusional daydream that I'm going to send it off to my agent by the end of the week and she's going to say "This is AMAZING, let's put it on submission right this second!" Completely delusional. I, of all people, should know (I do know) how revisions go. On and on.

But somehow, I always think this time is going to be different, and I can just skate through...

Here are two illuminating posts on revisions that inspired me this morning! One on Janice Hardy's blog about turning revision into a game, and one on Anna Staniszewski's blog about going big.