WRITING TUTORIAL: How to revise when you want to throw in the towel.

Dispatches from my own personal rabbit hole.

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

I wrote this novel a couple of years ago. I really cared about it. I got feedback that pulled me pretty far away from my original vision—which I resisted but then eventually submitted to. It felt like agony. The novel sold to an editor I really like and respect.

When I heard the editor’s suggestions for revision, my stomach bottomed out.

Without knowing where the book had begun, she essentially asked me if I’d be willing to revise it in such a way that it would take me back to my original vision—and push that original vision farther than even I had had the nerve to push it way back when.

I felt . . . so many things in this moment.

Anger, despair, resistance, frustration. A bit of, I KNEW IT! My gut way back in the day and early on was right! I chided myself for not hanging onto my original vision harder, so I wouldn’t be in the place I was now.

Then I agreed to go backwards.

Dear reader, it sucked. I have really struggled to go back and try to put myself back in that place where I began—for all sorts of emotional reasons. Including the fact that I had already done a million drafts (well, not a million but it felt like a million), that all now felt useless, like I had been going in the wrong direction the entire time AND going against my instincts to boot. Revising my novel in a way that didn’t feel right.

Then I handed in a revision (in January) that didn’t feel quite right either and that I knew didn’t go far enough toward what the editor wanted. But I have so much emotional baggage about this novel that I needed to get it off my desk.

I got back her edits last week and boy was it rough. She is still pushing me to do the thing she asked for in the first place (and then some), and my initial response was:

I JUST CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE.

I went so far as to write to her and say that maybe this novel isn’t worth it, and maybe I should just throw in the towel. I am tired out, and I am heartbroken because I loved this novel, and I am mad at myself for not fighting harder for my original vision.

Time passed.

And now here I am, trying to climb out of this emotional hole so I can make this novel work, because if I’m totally honest, I still care about this novel very much. This is how I’m doing it:

1. I wrote a new chapter one, for one of the main protagonists. I decided to start her in a different place in her story—that would soon take me to the place where her narrative originally started.

Why did I do this?

Because I needed to renew my interest in my own characters. I’m using this new chapter like JUMPER CABLES. A fresh start for a fresh revision, but also because I’ve needed to renew my energy for the book to get through yet another revision.

I have found in the past that the best way to force myself to go back in yet again after going in so many times is to add something new and exciting to add to the book—almost like handing myself an unexpected, delicious dessert when I thought there would only be vegetables.

2. I am letting myself (and my characters) go where previously I didn’t dare go, and this feels kind of exciting.

Which again, is in the vein of letting myself have something via this novel that I previously felt that I wasn’t allowed to have. Dessert plus extra dessert.

3. I am letting myself slowly get back into things—and forgiving myself the slowness.

I am normally a “dive-in” kind of girl and swim, swim, swim really fast. But revising can feel like a slog, and I am trying to let myself plod along and not get frustrated about this. It will take the time it takes.

4. Even though I am letting myself take the time I need to get back into this revision, I have also given myself a strict deadline.

Because it’s also true that I don’t want this to take forever, and I’ve already been in this book for a very long time. At some point, I do need to let this thing go, come what may.

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Is anyone out there struggling with revision right now? If so, I’d love to hear from you and how *you* get through going back in when the whole of you is really resisting doing so.