I've been making a lot of those lately. "It's a three-day weekend, I don't want to work on the revision." "I have a migraine. I don't want to work on the revision." "I worked on plotting and world-building for a different project, I don't want to work on the revision too." "I spent all day doing housework, I don't have enough energy for a revision day."

Seems like I've been making a lot in my personal life too. "I'm sorry I suck so much at keeping in touch." "I just haven't felt like being online."

The truth is, I don't feel like I have enough energy for everything life throws at me as well as everything I want out of life. Since it's impossible to ignore the need to work & pay bills, impossible to ignore a migraine that feels like a spike through your left eye, and impossible to ignore kittens who are running roughshod over your head? I end up letting personal stuff fall to the wayside. I don't answer emails quickly enough. I forget to call my best friend. I stay up too late one night and drag around at half-energy the next.

I've been simplifying and cutting some things out of my life lately. I intentionally let go of a friendship that meant a lot to me, but simply became too emotionally vampiric for me to continue. Even the friends I do value have gotten short shrift lately, and I'm sorry about that.

Of course, I also have had some victories. I think I've done pretty well at raising two kittens at once, which wouldn't have seemed like such a victory this time last year, but definitely is. I've gotten a third of the way through my novel revision, despite the new migraines that started in June. I've read over fifty books this year.

We're slipping into autumn, which is always a reflective season for me. Something about the combines throwing up clouds of chaff in a bean field, the golden light, the breezy cooling of the weather, makes me take stock of my life and yearn to give in to my wanderlust. Knowing my birthday is a month away makes me wonder where I'll be and what I'll be doing on my birthday next year.

Just a little bit of lunch-time introspection...

And lately some of the casualties have been a couple of scenes I always liked and a character who, honestly, sort of annoys me.  But fortunately I've discovered a few foxholes, like a couple of scenes with a new character I like more than I expected, or a way to rearrange the plot in a way that both speeds up the lagging pace of the novel and also salvages what I liked best about my favorite deleted scene.

Another casualty of the revision process lately has been my confidence.  I've been saying for years that I think this is my most readily marketable novel.  This is the first one I plotted out in advance, and it has series potential but stands alone, and it does a lot of things I want the novel to do.  AND I'm suddenly not sure that I'm doing it justice yet.

I've been vicious with this revision.  I've looked at every scene and asked what it actually accomplishes, what purpose it serves, if it puts me to sleep rereading it.  A lot of scenes have simply been slashed out of existence because of that last reason.  And now I'm wondering:  If, after 7 years of living with this novel and thinking about this novel, I have deleted about a third of it, what's to say that after another 7 years of living with it, I wouldn't realize another third of it needed to go?

This morning while I was doing some mundane stuff at my paying job, I got to thinking about the main conflict in my novel and started wondering if it's really as compelling as I think.  What if the "bad guys" are right?  Will readers look at the situation and go, "You know, they have a point.  Why IS it that way?  Who actually benefits from this situation, and why shouldn't they try to change it?"  Because that's absolutely NOT the reaction I want.  But maybe I'm setting myself up for that.

It isn't enough to tell a good story.  I want the story to make sense.  I want the conflict to tug at readers' guts and make them root for the good guys.  And suddenly I wonder if I'm doing that.

*sigh* Another rejection letter, this one for "Warleader". I'm getting discouraged. I know it will pass, but every time I get a rejection letter, I think, "Maybe the one acceptance I got was a fluke. Maybe this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing at all."

It doesn't help that I haven't felt the mental energy to do much original writing lately. Most of my writing has been done via RPG.

*sigh* Another rejection letter, this one for "Warleader". I'm getting discouraged. I know it will pass, but every time I get a rejection letter, I think, "Maybe the one acceptance I got was a fluke. Maybe this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing at all."

It doesn't help that I haven't felt the mental energy to do much original writing lately. Most of my writing has been done via RPG.

*sigh* Another rejection letter, this one for "Warleader". I'm getting discouraged. I know it will pass, but every time I get a rejection letter, I think, "Maybe the one acceptance I got was a fluke. Maybe this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing at all."

It doesn't help that I haven't felt the mental energy to do much original writing lately. Most of my writing has been done via RPG.

Got another rejection letter today, this one from Donald Maas Literary Agent.

Happy day before your birthday, Steph.


*bummed*