I hate
drafting. Ok, so maybe I don’t hate
it, but writing the first draft is by far my least favorite part of
writing a book. Now revising? Revising, I love. Allow me to share my possibly weird philosophy on that.
Writing a
book is like painting (bear with me on this one). You get the idea in your head
to paint a room. You know it’s going to look fantastic, and you’re excited
about it. It starts out kind of fun—hey! You’re listening to music, you’re
sipping a coffee, you’re painting, woo!—and then it’s not fun anymore. Your
arms feel like Jello and you’ve only done one wall. But you persist, a)
because you’ve started it so now you have to finish it, and b) because you know
it’s going to look freaking fantastic when you finally finish. Still, you can’t
see the finish line yet and most of the joy has been sucked out of it. On top
of that, you’re questioning if Darkest Grape really was a good paint color
choice. Probably you should have gone with the Naples Sunset, or the Purple
Wine.
This is the
first draft.
But then? Then you finish, and you get to pull all the tapes off the windows and replace
the furniture to the room, and put the art back up on the wall, etc. And it’s just
so fun! And satisfying!
This is
revising. The point of writing where you finally get to see the book take shape
into (hopefully) something great.
So there
you have it. I love revising.
How about
you guys? Which part of writing do you like the best/least?
