Let me tell you about the last couple of weeks in my world. I went to Europe for Thanksgiving (swoon!). Landed in Barcelona and traveled along the Mediterranean coast for 10 days, touring Carcassonne, Provence, ending up in Nice, with a quick trip to Monaco. The weather was perfect, the food was good, and I drank plenty of great wine. Before the trip, I worked super-hard to finish my two December 1 deadlines so I wouldn’t have any work hanging over me and I could really relax.
When I returned November 30, I had a lot of mail waiting for me, including — literally on my doorstep — the copyedited manuscript for my stand-alone fantasy novel coming out next year. Also waiting was the editorial revision letter for my second young adult novel. On top of that, over the next week I received the editorial revision letter for the eighth Kitty novel (which I had turned in right before the trip); proof pages for two short stories, one of which was the wrong version of the story (they’d mistakenly used an earlier version); and a short story revision that I should have done two months ago but I let it slip through the cracks.
By Thursday I wanted to flush my brain out of my skull. So much for relaxing.
I have a theory that all my editors decided to clean their desks off before the holidays. I mean really — I turned in all of these projects at different times, they’re on different schedules, there’s no reason except Murphy’s Law that they all should have come back to me at the same time. On the other hand, I’ve learned something. (Well, two things, really. I’ve learned that I may be trying to juggle too many projects at once. I might want to work on that. But that’s another story.)
The important lesson here: It’s unhealthy to spend too much time focusing on what’s wrong with your work.
That sounds so obvious, yet it’s another one of those items that I’m only just now articulating in any kind of useful way. By their nature, revisions and copyedits are tedious, requiring massive attention to detail. Revising a novel means peeling back the layers, analyzing the structure, figuring out not just what isn’t working, but why it isn’t working, and if the problem is maybe linked to a different part of the novel entirely. (For example, if the climax isn’t believable, it’s probably because it hasn’t been set up well enough earlier on.) The whole point of the revision letter is so the editor can tell you everything — and I mean everything — that isn’t working, from a character who isn’t convincing to a scene that strains credulity. Copyedits are high-pressure because it’s your last real chance to make changes to the book, and someone has gone through with a red pencil showing you exactly how little you really know about grammar and spelling after all. You have to suppress the urge to call up the poor copyeditor and say, “No, really, I do know the difference between ‘break’ and ‘brake,’ I don’t know how I let that slip by, I feel like an idiot.”
At one point last week I was staring at all this work on my desk, realizing that I was about to spend the next month or so looking at all the things that are wrong with my books, and trying to be objective about other people telling me everything that’s wrong with my books. Not cool. Some hair pulling may have occurred.
So, what’s the remedy? How do I tell my brain and my self-esteem that my writing doesn’t actually suck? Well, I’m writing something brand new, a science fiction short story that’s completely different than everything I’m revising. I’m going to try to spend a limited amount of time each day on the stack of revisions, both to keep my perspective fresh and to keep myself from wallowing in despair too much. I’m going to try to make sure I don’t spend all my time and energy on this one difficult aspect of the process.
I’m also listening to lots and lots of holiday music, which always makes me happy. And yesterday I went to the grocery store and picked up the ingredients for baking approximately nine million Christmas cookies. That’ll cheer me up.
Happy Holidays!
