It is very hard to wait to read it. It is very hard not to think about what I might fix in an edit. However, it really is important to wait. I have been trying to keep busy. I’ve written three lovely sonnets–one of them spectacular. I have written some goofy fan fiction–anything to distract myself. I have been gathering materials for a new art project. I have started writing real letters to a kind friend, making the envelopes, cutting the letter head down to size. I have changed the music in my MP3 player to keep it from dragging me back to that book place. My personal journal is filling up at an alarming rate. My fountain pen just killed another ink cartridge.

And yet to spite all of that, some editing notes did appear. Notes on the ending.  Notes about what the ending might change if I wrote another story in the same world. Scene descriptions in what might turn out to be another story. I ask myself truthfully–will I still be sane in one more month of waiting? I don’t really know. I need to forget. But what did I do tonight? I went back to Redeemer and read some random scenes. Remember, that was my first attempt at this story. The characters  are vastly different. The storyline is the very end. Glimmers of what is waiting for me at the end of next month.

I have a long way to go in this process. I expect to spend months in revision. A full rewrite, probably more than one. A partial manuscript review. Late spring. But it all starts with that first read through. I’m afraid to even format it. I’m just going to print it out RTF, not even checked for spelling. I will suffer through it, just to have an entirely fresh look at what I’ve got.

Just as an aside…I’ve also been reading back through my personal journals, blithely skipping over the plethora of things I wrote about this story when I could. Honesty. If what I have is even half as good as what I have in my personal writings–I have achieved something. God knows, I struggle with the idea that it only means something to myself–but what it does mean, it strikes deeply. I caught a line in there this afternoon that almost brought me to tears.