A Hunger for Revisions

This morning in my writing group I heard a chapter read aloud from a novel-in-progress. I've heard the chapter at least twice before, maybe 3-4 times in all, and am familiar enough with it that I noticed whole new sections. In earlier iterations, the entire chapter was 23-25 pages, and the group had advised the author that her last 10-12 pages needed the most work. This morning, before she read, she apologized for ignoring our advice and said that she'd gotten enmeshed in the first 10 or so pages instead of working on the latter half. Those pages had grown to 20 during this frantic revision, which took place over the past week and ended when she went to bed last night. The writing was confident, passionate, rich in detail with gripping dialogue. The things she'd chosen to expand did need expanding, which somewhat startled all of us. Characters that were shadowy before are fully fleshed. Scenes she'd teased us with are deepened and broadened, enriched with details of setting, character, plot. Now the 20 pages are a stand-alone chapter. The writer is already planning her next step, which is to work on what had been the second half of the chapter and expand it into a separate piece.

I found myself feeling envious of the writer. Not the sort of envy that comes from a feeling of less-than. I know I'm a talented and accomplished writer. But I felt heartsick that I didn't have anything to return home to...this time I made a note: "I wish I had something written so I could work on a revision--go into it with my whole hands, like kneading dough." That feeling stayed with me all afternoon, and I'm hoping it's the prelude to a return to true, real writing, not the scattered pages I've produced over the past year: meandering story lines, interesting but not compelling characters, an ambivalence about the 'when' of things, a lack of enthusiasm about research (which I usually love), and no direction whatsoever. Still, the few pages linger and whisper to me at the oddest times, so something richer and deeper is in them than I'm seeing right now. Can hardly believe that after all these years I'm still freaked-out by the blank screen, am still hearing the whispered "that's shit" from the demon on my shoulder. [Wonder if the s-word will make it by the blog police. I gave up heavy cursing many years ago, feeling challenged as a writer to find better words than the George Carlin famous seven. But the s-word still makes its conniving way into my speech and thoughts from time to time. As well it should.]

I learned something today that I most likely already knew, buried deep in my unconscious...I cherish the phase of writing that produces such chapters as I heard today. I've done such revisions myself, many times. The way I write is like Ray Bradbury once described: "I throw up in the morning and clean up in the afternoon." My first writing generally suffers from too-much-ness. My first edits cut away to the truth. Then comes that delicious time when I wallow in what my characters have to say, taking my hands from the keyboard to ramble through my thesaurus and "The Synonym Finder," a favorite tool. I recline in my desk chair and think about what the character's thinking about, then snap back to the keyboard. I long for that.

I do feel better having written this.