I revised Time and Space back in March for typos and little things that my Beta Readers had picked up on. And then I became distracted. Other priorities popped up, or maybe I should say screamed more for my attention. Plus, to be honest, I didn’t feel up to the task of revising Time and Space for the bigger things that got pointed out, like fleshing out a concept or deciding on whether to beef up or pare down a dialogue sequence (I received diametric requests on some segments. Sigh.).
This past week, I still didn’t feel up to it. But time is a-ticking. And it’s, uh, time to grit my teeth and start from the top, that is word one in chapter one, and reread and revise Time and Space for the big picture items. But like anything else that seems daunting, the anticipation deceives. Once I dived in, it was way easier than I thought. Hey, it was even fun! But — it doesn’t mean that once I’d finished up for the day and sat back down at my computer the next day, that my deceiving anticipation had relented. Nope, it was just as difficult as the first time to open up that manuscript and begin reading and revising it with a critical eye. You’d think it would be. You’d think that once I knew — from actual experience — that I could do it, that I would hop to it with great eagerness. But nope. Maybe I need a few more revision days to prove to myself what I learnt back in November: Time and Space is the first novel that I truly enjoyed writing.
