We've Come To The End

Revision are done. I can't believe it! These are the words of my editor as she sent the last of the notes: "We made it! Wonderful story, beautifully told." (Isn't she the best??)


It isn't the first set of revisions, of course. There were the critiques from my writing group after the very roughest drafts, and then again after I thought it was "all done." Between requests there were tweakings, and right before NorLightsPress asked for the entire manuscript, I went into panic mode and did more revisions.

So this hasn't been the first edits, but they are the last, and more significantly, they are the professionally driven ones.

As I come to the end, this is what I've learned: Even the little things can be hard to change.

I don't know if it's my rebellious nature or my resistance to change, but even many of the seemingly "happy-to-glad" changes I initially resisted in my head. These small changes: the movement of an adverb from the beginning of the sentence to the middle; the change of one word to another; the rephrasing of a paragraph that seemed awkward.

There were times when I said, "Of course! That makes so much more sense!" But there were times when I thought, "But I like it that way."

Until I actually made the change. And the lightbulb went off. It is much better this way!

This is something else I've learned: Even making small changes can make a big difference.

The paragraphs I wrestled with rewriting; the  dialogs I had to tag; the sentence structure I had to change. Even when I didn't want to do it. Even when in my head I thought, "There's nothing wrong with this..."

When it was all said and done and I sat back and looked at it and realized, Wow! This flows more smoothly, makes more sense, sounds more powerful.

Which is why my editor is brilliant. And why we writers need brilliant editors.

And the wisdom to listen to them.