the hardest revision ever

Cutting and piecing and sweating...

Recently someone offered to read my first YA novel, Strength, along with the query letter, and offer me feedback. She didn't offer once, but a handful of times, and last week she sent me an email asking where my book is -- she's waiting.

After her offer I opened my query letter and totally changed it. I was mortified to think I actually sent it out to a handful of people. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why I didn't hook an agent. The thing is, after looking at the query letter and revising it significantly I was a little afraid to look at the story again. So I avoided it...until her email came.

Mary Helen, one of the members of my writing group, read the book last July, after I sent my first batch of queries. Her response kind of made my gut wrench. She suggested the story start in a different place...or at the very least I increase the tension in the first part of the book. But I already cut the first 50 pages, I don't know where else to start the story! (This could have sounded a little whiny.) Still, Mary Helen's suggestion was one of those little seeds that took root and grew. I let it grow because I wasn't quite sure what to do with the story. So I avoided it. I didn't open it. I put all of the hard copies in a box and put the box high up on a shelf. I worked on something else.

And then that email last week...from someone with experience in children's publishing...who wants to read my story. Big gulp. Then a snow storm and school was closed. Deep breath. A tiny click. And the story was opened.

All day I worked on the beginning. All day. Soon the difference between writing well and crafting a story became real to me. The writing wasn't terrible, but at the same time, the story wasn't right. So I grabbed an orange Flair felt-tip pen and began to cross out and jot notes and cross out more. I began to connect parts that were originally pages apart. Soon I had my computer out and was piecing together the beginning. I kept my Flair pen moving until I wasn't crossing out chunks of text. It was then I knew I had a new beginning -- the beginning the story needed. Thirty-nine pages became 19.

It was the hardest revision work I've ever encountered. I sent it out to my writing group and was affirmed when Mary Helen sent me a response that confirmed this is the beginning the story needs. She then commented on the first four pages and wiped away the sting of revision. Maybe I can do this after all, I thought. Honest feedback coupled with affirmation and giving the story space and time to simmer are lifelines for me as a writer. Once again I'm learning I can't rush this process, but at the same time I need gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) nudges to keep going.