Revising... I hate it. Okay, those words don't really hold the emotion I'm trying to express. I loathe it, and wish I could take my laptop and chuck it across the room when it takes me an hour to revise two $!#@ing paragraphs! But then if I had a laptop in peices it would probably take me much longer to revise. I love the writing, getting the bones down on paper is a thrill. But revising sucks beyond belief. I know I need to do it, I even have the battle plan in my mind of what needs to change (at least the big ideas), but it's pure torture. It's the perfectionism bug, I know it is. Right now, I have so many suggestions rolling around in my head that I want to make it perfect. Don't use facial expressions, or movement (how the hell am I supposed to cut all of those out - just description and dialogue? I think not). Watch the viewpoint - she can't see herself do this (then why when I'm reading many books does the author do that very same thing I'm chided over?) The revising is driving me up a wall (to use a wonderful cliche that seems to be the epitome of my life lately). Right now I just feel that my writing is terrible, that it has no color, no life, it's been degraded to mere words on paper. I'm self-conscious as I revise. I'm thinking how everyone else will reacte to how I word something, how they'll look at it and say that's wrong. And it doesn't help that I don't even have the entire rough draft of the novel written. How am I supposed to revise the beginning if I don't know the nuances that happen at the end?

Urgh, boo, hiss, grrr, grumble, spit, groan. Maybe it's time to blow my creative brain to bits and start over. No, no that wouldn't work. Maybe the revising has already turned my creative brain to mush. Bleh.