Revisions: Caught Up in the Cycle

I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my writing. I'm also pretty sloppy with my rough drafts. That means I must commit myself to months of revisions.

I finished reading through Silence today. Sometime tonight, or maybe tomorrow, I'll begin reading through Silence again. And again. As long as it takes until it's in shape.

I have other projects I could be working on. I need to seriously write my next non-Echoes Series novel. I started. It was a rough draft. I was dissatisfied. I left it.

Silence is too rough, anyway. It needs many more revisions. Each time I read, I find a new way of looking at the story. I haven't looked closely enough yet.

My revisions don't continue in an endless cycle. I take breaks. In November I plan to write a another NaNoWriMo novel. I don't know yet what it will be about or what I'll do with it after November. Right now it's enough to have a general plan.

And I have other things I need to work on. But I'm concerned about Silence. It has the makings of a good story, but it is so far away from where it needs to be.

I once went to a writers' critique group and shared a few pages of a rough draft I'd recently written. I've never done that before, and I don't intend to do it again. I don't care if you find clutter in my house when you drop by, but you will not be allowed to see the clutter in my story. I'm not finished cleaning. Come by later.

Sometimes it feels like it will never end. But it does. And sooner or later I have a nearly (but never quite) perfect and nicely bound manuscript in my hands. Otherwise known as a book. One I wrote. What a feeling.