Blinking in the sun: emerging from revisions

The last few months have been consumed with rewriting and revising my next novel for Egmont USA.

For the first part of the process, I pushed the timeline of the story baaaaaack and wrote a big batch of new chapters. My goal was to finish that writing before I went to Kindling Words West (aka KWW), a wonderful retreat for published children's book writers and illustrators. I made that deadline with just a few days to spare.

To celebrate, I painted our bathroom. I'm not very good at downtime. 

Then I printed out the entire manuscript and brought my "brick", as I dubbed it, to KWW. It was nearly a ream of paper! The retreat was the perfect place to immerse myself in revisions and nothing but revisions--well, plus a fair share of chatting with other writers and illustrators... and definitely stopping for three amazing meals each day! I could probably devote an entire blog entry just to the food that the Mabel Dodge Luhan House serves to KWW attendees, but I will spare you. Let me just say I'm still missing the goat cheese/tomato egg pie on cornmeal crust. And the chocolate mousse. And... sorry. In another life, I probably was a food writer. In this life I merely eat with unbounded enthusiasm.

I worked my way through the brick, marking my daily progress with a blue ribbon that steadily moved down the stack. By the end of the week, the blue ribbon was tied in a neat bow to the rubber bands that bound the manuscript. I was, quite stunningly, done. To celebrate, I boogied to Lady Gaga's "Let's Dance" with two other KWW attendees. They even indulged me with badly choreographed hip-bumps. Sorry if you're still bruised, ladies.

I was done--except for entering all my hand-entered changes (many of them big changes) into the manuscript on my computer. I was done--except for writing three new chapters, and going back to finish a few pages of "to dos" that I jotted down while revising on paper. Some things, like changing a character's name, are most easily done in electronic format.

Then, finally, I e-mailed my manuscript to my editor. Truly I was done.

At least until she's finished reading it!

Gee, that other bathroom's walls are looking awfully white...