Hopeful

[mrissa]

So mostly what we have this week is hope. Big hope. Little hope. Lots of it.

Robin's eye is healing well, and he has some small amounts of vision in it at this point.

My new vertigo specialist seems smart and dedicated and is doing some really comprehensive testing.

Those are the big two for this week. Those are the ones that were bothering me most last weekend. There are little ones, too, things taken care of, things removed from the list and out of our hair. I haven't gotten hopeful news about everybody this week, but it's astonishing how hope feeds on itself. Like despair that way, but far better from the inside.

Last night I finished the short story novelette revisions I'd been trying to do forEVer, and that's a big relief. It makes me feel like I'm actually getting somewhere and not just moving things around on the to-do list. It also makes me feel like Copper Mountain revisions are within my grasp.

The problem is, revisions tend to be draining on me in a way that writing new fiction is not. Yet you have to revise or you're stuck with whatever you put down the first time, and that's not always (or often) feasible. Running off and writing new fiction when you have stuff that needs revision...just creates more stuff that needs revision.

On the other hand, maintenance of sanity is not to be sneezed at. So there will be a new short story alongside the revisions of What We Did to Save the Kingdom. And I will be trying to put Copper Mountain out of my head, on the theory that 1) I can do it when it needs doing, and 2) revision of a sequel to an unsold book that has been languishing on the same editor's desk for quite some time now is not perhaps the best use of my time at this point in my life, and 3) fussing about revisions is not perhaps the best use of my time at any point in my life. Do, or do not do. There is no wibble.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Running off and writing new fiction when you have stuff that needs revision...just creates more stuff that needs revision.

The truth of this is ... irritatingly truthful. I started December with a thousand pages of revision to attend to: that's two full novels and something I'm still pretending is a novella, despite its being too long to qualify. We are now in mid-Jan, and I've done, ooh, 750 pages. And I do still kind of enjoy the process, page to page. Just, there's been so much of it...

*wibbles*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I start out enjoying it. I start out thinking, "Oooh, and I can fix this! And I can fix that! And I can wedge some more cool in right there!" And then it keeps going on...and on...and on...and I start to do the, "This book will never be any good and I am just rearranging deck chairs on the Lusitania, which is just as sunk as the Titanic but a fair bit less likely to have a blockbuster movie made of it, and...aiiiiigh."

And then I know that it's really time to get the revisions done enough so that smart people can look at it for me and say, "No, no, it's good, it's just...that deck chair there...no, really, I'm kidding, it's the entire lifeboat system that needs reworking. And the propulsion system. And other than that it's really quite fine." But today is not that day. Nor is tomorrow. And I have my doubts about Tuesday.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Next time you need a new LJ subtitle, "Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Edmund Fitzgerald" deserves consideration.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I suggest the Mary Celeste, or possibly the Enterprise.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Since "Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Gordon Lightfoot" is too mean?

[tewok.livejournal.com]

Great news about Robin's eye! I hope the healing continues.

Also, I'm glad to hear your new specialist is working out. Finding the right doctor can make all the difference in the world.