Edits and Experiences

I know quite a few writers who loathe the editing process.  For them it is something akin to a mammogram or a prostate exam; an unfortunate, embarrassing, and painful necessity that they put off for as long as they can.  

I, on the other hand, have never felt this way.  Editing has always felt to me like visiting an old, dear friend whom I haven't seen in a good long while.  We start on the familiar subjects, then veer off into new areas, then back again.  Editing is a conversation, one where I do a lot more listening than talking.

I'm doing a major rewrite on The Curious Snowflake right now, and I'm finding the entire process fascinating.  Here's this odd little bird of a story that always insisted on being in the style of a picture book, but when I said, "now listen, we have to turn you into a chapter book", she was like "okay then, well when I went here, this happened..." and off we go, nearly as effortless as it was when I first wrote her back in 2008.  Occasionally my Critic (obnoxious bastard that he is) has stuck his head rudely into the middle of the conversations with his doubts and perfectionisms, but TCS shoos him off like he's a rude puppy begging for scraps at the table.  Perhaps that's why I love her so.  I am a born listener and she's always been able to carry the conversation.  :-)

Editing TCS is also a major shift in gears for me.  Ever since early February when a wonderful email conversation with Allie Burke of Stigma Fighters (look her and them up!) on the nature of schizophrenia finally broke my writer's block, I've been going great guns on Children of Dusk. Shifting from YA urban fantasy to spiritual allegory generates more than a little creative whiplash, but there are some interesting parallels.  There's a bit of Curious Snowflake in Vee Melan, and First Flake shines through in both Daniel Lum and Kieran, and the other judgmental flakes certainly mirror Tim's high school experience, with its cliques and pettiness.  Many writers, including ones I admire like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman, really do write one story over and over in different ways and with different perspectives.  Perhaps that is because we really have only one story, our own, and we just come up with different ways to tell it.

JCS