I’m learning to love revision. I realize reading over my revisiphobia posts that it sounds like I hate and am opposed to revision. Not so. I might not enjoy it, but it’s SO necessary! I’m willing to rewrite the whole book if need be, if that’s what it’ll take to make it better… but only if I have to. 
I say this because I didn’t write this weekend. I had those thirty pages and couldn’t go forward. There are a couple reasons for this. The first is that I’m, you know, querying, and my attention when something lacks closure is totally preoccupied with the open thing. I simply can’t focus on the new work, constantly looking over my agent list, adding notes for how to personalize their queries, looking for agents I might have missed - who knows, s/he could be the one! - and generally obsessing. I’ve never been a great multitasker for this reason. But I know my weaknesses at least.
The other reason relates to revision. I’m an intuitive writer, and in this new story, my main character, Davit, gets a ragtag group together. In my head, he gets Jin, then Rose, and then Phoebus. As I was writing, this dude Sel popped up before Rose. And I ground to a halt. I realized I’ll need Sel to get Phoebus, but he so does not belong in the novel yet. So this morning I axed the four pages since I met him, and am picking back up with Davit and Jin on their way to meet Rose. The four pages with Sel are fun. They’re good pages, I can see why I wrote them, how they work… but in my gut I know they’re wrong. Sel will be most useful later, convincing Phoebus to join the crew. So that’s where he’s going. Bye-bye, Sel. See you in another thirty pages or so. (Yes, Heather, Sel is named after your Sil. And he’s rather a minor character, but look! You have an homage!)
Why is it that over the weekend I think of all sorts of things to blog about (usually Christianity-related) but come Monday when I sit down to type them, they are gone? Annoying.