Another Day, Another Draft

So I (finally) managed to complete the 3rd Draft of "Blood Skies". This is a significant event for me in that I have never had enough patience with a writing project to subject myself to the unearthly horrors of revision more than once, let alone three times. This is probably a very good sign.

Revision is a strange beast. On the one hand, you get the impression that it should be easy...after all, you've already done the hardest part (writing 80K+ pages). All you're doing now is polishing it, right?

Not so much. I find I abhor my writing never so much as when I have to read it again. Part of that loathing is similar to what I sometimes experience while writing a first draft: a novel (or story, or script, or whatever) is never so perfect as when it exists only inside of the hollow nether regions of my skull. Putting the idea to paper almost seems a cruel thing to do to something so beautiful as an idea untarnished by shoddy execution.

Revision, to me, is a related but altogether different travesty. While in the throes of a first draft, I can often delude myself into thinking I've somehow managed to put a quality tale to the page, especially when I recall those late hours and early mornings where jaws of life would be required to pry me away from my writing. Going back and having to examine the writing -- to pull it into the light and examine every terrible metaphor and ill constructed sentence under a microscope -- is sort of like looking at yourself in the mirror naked after you've worked out. "Really?" you ask your novel/reflection. Yes, really.

So the fact that I'm still hanging with "Blood Skies" for what will now be a 4th draft is pretty miraculous. That, or it's just a sign of the fact that I haven't had inspiration to write much of anything else lately. ;)