When I got suggested revisions for Persona Non Grata from my editor last month, I cried.
"She hates it," I told Tiff over the phone.
"She does not, Stephanie. How could she hate it? What did she say?"
Tiff and I went page by page through the draft, as I shared Leigh's comments.
"Steph, stop. She doesn't hate it. Some of her points are valid, and this is why you chose her."
They were both right, of course. I have an inner circle of friends who've read one or more drafts, but I chose Leigh to edit for me because I knew she would push me with a perspective that was different from my own. Some of her suggestions were absolutely spot-on. Some I've opted not to take, which is totally within my prerogative as author.
But, as she told me, she pushes me as hard as she would push herself. She is there to help me make this into the best work it can be, not something that's just good enough.
Within a couple of days, I started making changes. Most of them were small, niggling details or typos that needed to be fixed. As soon as I hit the hardest part of the work, though, my writer brain shut down.
It wasn't that I was blocked mentally from the work. I knew what needed to happen and how. But I was having a really hard time wrapping my heart around these characters again.
Writing Persona Non Grata has been incredibly emotional for me. There's a lot of my real self in there—as well as a lot that's made up—and stepping back into the hearts and minds of those characters is exhausting. I've been in and out of them so many times now that they are as intimately familiar to me as any real person. Their lives and the story have a certain rollercoastery ebb-and-flow that can tumult my own heart at times, and I was very intimidated by slipping into that place again.
I sat for a week or more with about forty pages that needed to be reworked. Some of it needed to be cut. Some of it needed to be expanded. All of it needed to be rearranged. I couldn't just skip it and go back, because it would drive how I handled some other major turns of events. Finally, I printed the pages and cut them apart, taping them back together in a solid framework of plot. Then I was able to tweak those details and get going again.
Yesterday, I revised about fifteen chapters. By 11:00 last night, I was wiped. So I put it away for the night and will be back at it today.
I'm 2/3 of the way finished now. Then I have to reread the entire thing again before I pass it back to Leigh. I'm trying to get it finished before my last surgery on August 1st. Even though I added an entirely new chapter (and several new or extrapolated passages), this revision is actually two chapters shorter than the last. It's tighter and better balanced... exactly like my editor wanted.
Turns out, her two cents is worth ten grand.
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