Today I hit send on my new novel. For the fourth time. Each time I thought I had written a lovely, moving, compelling story and each time my agent told me “Not yet.” Here’s the thing. She’s always right. When you are so close to the story, it’s hard to see its flaws, where it falters, what it still needs. This time I did a major overhaul. I added two other POVs. I changed the ending. Completely. I did what Joseph Conrad suggests: re vision. To see the story anew. It may still be not quite right, but with each revision it gets closer. I hope. Dare I say like life itself? We keep tweaking and revising as we go, sometimes doing a major overhaul. And sometimes life does the revision for us. I spent a lot of time today thinking and writing, and much of that thinking and writing was trying to articulate my life revisions. At sixty, I completely changed my life. For the better. My mom told me one day as I cried at her kitchen table: You're not going to be cute forever, you know! What are you waiting for?
I was terrified and exhilarated stepping into a new life, setting up a new home with Annabelle, changing my life completely. Major overhaul. Who would have thought that I would find true love and embark on an exciting revision with someone who loves everything I do—reading, cooking, eating, traveling, playing cards, talking about literature. The list is long. But then life did a big revision by taking Gogo. The weight of this loss sends me to bed, or to pick up my knitting needles. The taking apart of her house, our family’s home for over a hundred thirty years, saddens and depletes me. But then Annabelle and I curl up together and binge watch The Gilmore Girls, her head in my lap. Or my husband makes me dinner and tells me to just sit and knit. Or I see Sam walking down a NYC street toward me and get wrapped in one of his amazing Sam hugs. Or I stay in bed with my computer on my lap and two cats on my feet. I don’t know if my latest revisions on this novel are right yet. I only know you keep at it, cutting and changing and adding new POV. You just keep at it.
I was terrified and exhilarated stepping into a new life, setting up a new home with Annabelle, changing my life completely. Major overhaul. Who would have thought that I would find true love and embark on an exciting revision with someone who loves everything I do—reading, cooking, eating, traveling, playing cards, talking about literature. The list is long. But then life did a big revision by taking Gogo. The weight of this loss sends me to bed, or to pick up my knitting needles. The taking apart of her house, our family’s home for over a hundred thirty years, saddens and depletes me. But then Annabelle and I curl up together and binge watch The Gilmore Girls, her head in my lap. Or my husband makes me dinner and tells me to just sit and knit. Or I see Sam walking down a NYC street toward me and get wrapped in one of his amazing Sam hugs. Or I stay in bed with my computer on my lap and two cats on my feet. I don’t know if my latest revisions on this novel are right yet. I only know you keep at it, cutting and changing and adding new POV. You just keep at it.
