"Revision is just as important as any other part of writing and must be done con amore."
--Evelyn Waugh
Jane Yolen and I have just received our revision notes from our editor for the new novel Except the Queen. Not too bad -- but there is a matter of 15,000 words that need to be edited out to create a more compact manuscript of 110,000 words. And there are the suggestions that some sections must go while others must be built up. And then of course the niggling confusing plot issues that eluded us while we were focused on the BIG picture.
I know it's good and right to do. I know it has to be done. But I might need a day or two to find the love that Waugh recommends. I tend to think that revision like revenge is a "dish best served cold" -- it requires cool, emotional detachment to murder the darlings and precious phrases that once seemed so admirable.
*art is "Fairies Among the Mushrooms" by Thomas Heatherley
Midori Snyder is the author of nine books for children and adults, published in English, French, Dutch, and Italian. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati, a novel inspired by early Roman myth and the Italian "Commedia dell'Arte" tradition....
