It Feels Like...

I think one of the reasons revision becomes difficult at times is because it doesn't feel like writing.  Or perhaps it doesn't feel like reading.  Maybe it just feels like work.
 
I read to discover a story.  I write first drafts for the same reason.  I love the thrill of a story.  While tweaking and polishing and discovering themes and imagery is all creative and exciting in its own right, what I think I miss these days is that story element, the beginning-middle-end flow that takes you on a ride--whether you're reading or writing.  There's a difference between telling and tweaking.
 
I have also discovered that I have been lazy.  I believed out there somewhere was a magic pill, something that would take away the necessity of looking at each bit of dialog, every description, and the multitudes of periods, semi-colons, question marks and commas.  I did not want to read things out loud to check rhythm.  I wanted to push through once--like I did with the draft--and have the rewriting/revision part be over.  It doesn't quite work that way.  I've picked through bits and pieces of my current project so many times.  If it was a turkey carcass, it would be picked clean, nothing left to discover or enjoy.  Or so it seems.  There’s always soup to be made.  Yum.
 
So the wrestling continues.  I fight it daily.  But once I pull out the workbook we worked from over the retreat weekend and discipline myself to just start I do re-discover the joy and excitement that I came away with from that weekend.  I guess the idea of revision still seems to be more tedious than it actually ends up being once I get underway. 
 
Tomorrow I'm supposed to finish checking characterization and dialog.  I hope to do that in a quiet house while the guys are out catching the pay-per-view edition of the football game.  I took this weekend semi-off, feeling very drained with a scratchy throat, like there’s a cold in the wings.  Dh had today off, so I keep thinking it’s Saturday, and I keep panicking over the fact that I haven’t met my revision goal for the week, and then my mind comes full circle.  Tomorrow’s Saturday, I’ve cleared it of my usual 160 mile trip, and if I put my hand to the plow early in the morning, I can probably spend most of the day in the chair with my laptop and maybe even a mug of something warm (cold front’s moving through tonight!).  Maybe a bag of cough drops.

I seem to have a thing for music these days, and not the same old stuff I’m hearing over and over and over again on the radio.  Of all the thousands upon thousands of songs that have been written, why the stations must play the same few to death I don’t know.  I’ve actually set a classical station on the radio in the car.  I’ve loaded the best picks off of several CDs back onto this computer, and you know what, I won’t have to listen to the same-old-same-old while I breeze through this manuscript tomorrow.