by Meredith Cole

We had freezing rain on Sunday here in Virginia and there was major panic from my fellow locals. They all ran out and bought extra milk, bread, water, batteries and toilet paper. And what did I do? I stayed home and revised my book (making sure my laptop was fully charged–just in case we lost power) because I am a writer and that’s what writers do.

Revisions always take way longer than I think they will. For a first draft I usually give myself a word count goal and I feel elated as I watch the number of words pile up every day. But when I get to the end, it’s time to take a cold hard look at what I’ve written. And most of it has to go.

I just finished teaching a novel writing class, and I always try to be honest with my students. “How many revisions do you do?” they ask me. And I realize that I have no idea. Does a partial rewrite of the first 30 pages count? Does going through to make sure some detail got changed throughout the book count? But if you’re talking full revisions where I go through and try to make each detail as strong and true as possible, I would guess at least 9 times. But it could be more…

Revising does not sound like fun to most people, and my many of my novel writing students’ eyes glaze over at the thought. Even some professional writers hate revising passionately. But I love to dig deep and see my story get better and better.

So bring on the bad winter weather (just leave on the heat and electricity, please). I will use it as an excuse to stay home and get my next book polished. And hopefully I’ll have my book all finished soon. At least this draft.