Friday Morning Thoughts

I posted a few days ago on Facebook about how first drafts are like falling in love. They are. It's exciting and new. Every time you sit down, you get to discover your characters. The main character especially- I just discovered that the main character in my NaNo WriMo story is a badass with a knife. 

So yes, first drafts are a lot of fun. Like falling in love, when you're obsessed with each other and spend way too much of your free time (and not-so-free time) thinking about the other person. (I'm just assuming this is a generalization. If not, I swear I'm not creepy.) 

But then you finish that first draft and it's not new anymore. You know your characters. You know what happens. You know the parts that aren't so exciting.

In relationships, this tends to come out at the end of the so-called 'honeymoon' phase.

As a writer you have two choices. One, you can move on to a new story and go through the new exciting phase again. Two, you can buckle down and go into revision.

To be fair, it took me eight years of writing to actually manage option two. Before that, I was firmly in the moving on to another new thing category.

It might be a little depressing to liken staying in a relationship to revising a book. Especially if you are at all familiar with how much I bitch about revising.

Here's my big secret: I love revising. GASP!

Not because every part of it is fun and believe me, it has its moments, but I get to explore my characters even more, get to fix things that I was too lazy to worry about the first time around. I get to make it better.

This to me (in my admittedly limited experience) is a lot like being in a relationship that survives the honeymoon phase. You get to the point where you annoy each other and you've told all your stories. But now you're done falling. Now you're just in love. 

Contrary to popular movies and books, it's not glamorous and full of rose petals and champagne. But when you think about it, wouldn't you rather eat a whole loaf of garlic bread together and watch really bad movies and laugh when one of you (me) magically falls off an ottoman?

I'd rather have a really good story, one that's been revised and cared for, than a hundred first drafts. Because it is fun to write that first draft but it is so much more rewarding to work on a story long enough it looks more like a book than a first draft.

Note to You Know Who You Are: Notice how I did not mention anything embarrassing about you? Yeah. Remember that.