Tuessday in Revisionland

Yes, it is a six in the morning photo and yes, I am in my bathrobe, and no I have not brushed my teeth or my hair, and yes I am working. Don't I look as if I am about to burst into tears? And there is that furrow between my eyes and those deep, attractive clown lines around my mouth....(calling all expensive skin cream, on the double...). Not my best look, but I am working, working, working.

I had to do some other work first, some reviews for People, and for my columns at Dame and Boston Globe, and I wanted to do shout-out for friends. (See blog posts below, please.)  

Today's task is theme and character clean-up. I didn't weave threads in strongly enough, so I am going back now through the whole novel.  The problem and peril of doing this is that you start to discover other things that you didn't do.  Suddenly, I am seeing that I didn't develop a character enough, or that I dropped a scene that should have been expanded.  Really, right now, it is like the Butterfly Effect-you change one little thing and EVERYTHING changes.  

I rubber-ball around.  Some minutes I think: Oh, this is good.  This is better than anything I have done before.  Then a second later, I am obsessing: This is horrifically bad. This is the end of my career and I will have to get a job writing about towels, again. (Ten Terrific Shades for just 9.99 ea.) I have my editor as my lifeline and I keep trying not to anxiously look at the clock.  The funny thing is I have become paranoid about saving everything and so not only do I keep backing up on Time Tunnel, or whatever the Mac thing is called, but I back up on CD.  I email the whole novel to myself.  

Part of me cannot wait to get this right, but part of me is desperate not to lose my characters. I wonder, when this is over, if I will know what to do with myself.