And the second weekend of revisions begins.

I actually got started on revisions earlier in the week, but didn't have a phone line to do an update. So I'll catch up with that first, then hit the new stuff.

On Tuesday night, I was feeling like my revisions all sucked and weren't doing what they were supposed to, so I sat down and reread chapter 3 . . . and I liked it. Alot. So, reassured, I read through and started revising chapter 4. I got most of chapter 4 done that night, but only because the revisions to chapter 4 weren't complicated. No entire new scenes, just tweaking of the existing scenes, throwing in a few new references, etc.

My next chance to work on revisions came today, due to the day job interfering. So I started by rereading chapter 4, making the last few changes necessary at the end. Then I started in on chapter 5. My goal was to finish chapter 5 today as well . . . but I hit a roadblock. The "more active" scene that I'd planned to add to this chapter just wasn't working. Every time I started it, it just fizzled and died. It took me 2 hours of playing around with it before I finally realized that it wasn't going to work at all. So I bumped the new scene I'd planned to a point later in the book, where I think it will be more effective (we'll see when I get there) and so had to come up with a new "active" scene for this chapter.

See the main problem with the suggested revisions from my editor is that the stuff that's already written HAS to stay, since it's all setup. My editor agreed that the plot as written is fine, it's just . . . not active enough. So I've had to try to come up with active scenes that fit in with the current plot without distorting or destroying it, and that aren't just extra dribble.

So I spent a little while working on what the new active scene could be . . . and came up with something pretty cool actually. I tried to work it into this one spot, and again everything felt wrong. It wasn't fitting. I was getting frustrated by this point and almost just called it a day. Instead, I sat and fumed, clipped my fingernails, stared out the window, wondered why 4 police cars when racing by, sirens blaring, checked my fingernails again to see if they needed clipping yet. Meanwhile, the music was murmuring in my ear.

And then it hit me. The scene wasn't wrong, I was just trying to fit it into the wrong place in the chapter. Also, I decided that I could push the scene a little farther, take a bigger risk, and make it THAT MUCH BETTER! So I undid all the little attempts to make it fit in the one spot, and started putting it into the new spot, and everything was working great.

Unfortunately, I'd spent so much time fiddling around with it in the wrong spot that by the time I was hitting my groove I had to hit the gym (that cycling class I teach again). So I cut the scene off in mid-riot, hit the gym, played some games with pbray and jennifer_dunne and called it a night. I should be able to finish up chapter 5's revisions easily tomorrow, although I won't have that much time free. Then chapter 6. No idea what's changing in chapter 6 yet. We'll see I guess.

Good to know revisions aren't always easy, isn't it?

And yes, that's why I have no fingernails to speak of.