Today’s Guest Blogger Rachael Herron has this to say about revision.

I’m back in the middle of revision of a book, and I’m finally swimming in the water I love.

What I adore about revision is this: I know the world. I invented it, after all! When I open the document, I’m right in the middle of something I understand. It’s much easier, for me, to drop in for hours and rest on the page. It’s also easier to come out of, to shake off.

First drafts remain torture for me. So many of you love the first drafts, and I can admit that sometimes, the writing of new words is glorious. You surprise yourself with a turn of phrase that you’re pretty sure is genius and has probably never been said before. The plot bends and a tree you wrote about comes to life and points a branched finger in a direction you never saw coming. Inspiration flows, hot and heavy.

But maybe I’m just more of a down-to-earth gal. I love falling in love, but I love remaining in love more. Give me a passionate kiss before you take the trash out—that’s happiness to me. I like the comfort of What I Know. I like to tuck my feet under the thighs of my manuscript as we cuddle on the couch. I love knowing my manuscript likes the lights on till sleep-time, even though I prefer to read in the dark.

Revision is both comfortable and exciting, like a sturdy marriage. Oh, I love the word sturdy. It’s prosaic, but it’s so me. My legs are sturdy. My emotions are, too. I love my books to be sturdy enough to lean on.

And lean on them, I do. I fall into them, really. Revisions are getting in the bed you made of out words and pulling up the covers. Then you roll around, making those words better, cleaner, more focused.

Revision is when the REALLY big ideas show up. Then you have to move parts around, like those flat puzzle toys you slid pieces around on to make a picture, to make those new ideas fit. You might have to pry out some pieces and manufacture new ones. But then you click one piece left, and another one right, and suddenly, you’re looking at it. The whole picture. Your book.

Ahhh. I’m reveling.

Note from Marlene:  Yes! I also love revising. Moving parts around, like a puzzle = Exactly! And the euphoria when the pieces fit = Joy!

Rachael Herron is the bestselling author of the novels The Ones Who Matter Most (named a 2016 Editor’s Pick by Library Journal), Splinters of Light and Pack Up the Moon (all from Penguin), the Darling Bay and the Cypress Hollow series, and the memoir, A Life in Stitches (Chronicle). She received her MFA in writing from Mills College, Oakland and she teaches writing in the extension programs at both UC Berkeley and Stanford. She’s proud to be a New Zealander as well as a US citizen, though her Kiwi accent only comes out when she’s very tired. She’s honored to be a member of the NaNoWriMo Writers Board. She is currently a Writer in Residence at Mills College.

Today’s Guest Blogger post is from one of my favorite authors, Rachael Herron.

Rachael writes:

A comment by David Sedaris on a podcast gave me an a-ha moment recently, and I wanted to share it with you.

I’d always wondered how he got his essays so brilliantly specific—filled with the kind of particulars that put you right into the spot where he stands.

From Me Talk Pretty One Day, “For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it’s funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I’d squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I’m now told that this is not called “going to sleep” but rather “passing out,” a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.”

His humor comes from the details.

But how did he remember those details? When you’re reading his work, you’re right there, exactly with him.

I have a legendarily bad memory. This is why I blog and journal.

But I’ve been stumped in the past as to how to catch the things that flit by, the words I want to remember, the colors of the sunset I’m in front of, the smell from the Korean barbecue on the corner.

I’m not willing to drag out my big ole journal and plop down on the sidewalk to catch my ideas and put them into beautiful sentences. Therefore, I lose a lot of them. I want to live in the moment, not next to it.

The tip David Sedaris gave me? He jots down snippets, and then later transcribes and expands them in his diary.

I’ve often jotted snippets into a tiny Moleskine (because those can seriously go through the washer and come out with your words intact — ask me how I know). And I journal.

But combining the two — grabbing the few words and expanding them later — this is a really powerful combination that’s netted me some great stuff recently.

So I’ve taken to carrying a purse, even though I hate to do so. I find that tapping ideas into my phone doesn’t have the same feel as grabbing a notebook and pen and scribbling the words that lead to other ideas.

Of course, I don’t stop the party. I don’t announce that I need quiet for my creative inspiration. My goal is that no one notices what I’m doing. It’s the bank robbery of journaling — get in and get out before anyone sees your face.

Guest Blogger Rachael Herron writes about successes and failures.

It’s December! I know this for a fact (I just rechecked the calendar). No matter which hemisphere you’re in, regardless of season, this year is getting ready for her final bow. It’s completely impossible that 2015 is almost over because about seventeen minutes ago the year was just starting, full of potential and wonder and pale spring-green hope.

I’m prone to doing what everyone else does at the end of a year: weighing the past year’s successes and failures against each other.

But you know what? Failure weighs way more than success. When you put things on that imaginary scale, each small failure weighs as much as a wheelbarrow full of rocks while each huge success weighs almost nothing. Success makes you lighter—it makes you able to float for a minute or even an hour—while failure drags you so low your chin scrapes the pavement.

That? Is not fair. I don’t know about you, but I can have a million successes each day (I woke up alive! I made the best cup of coffee known to mankind! I wrote a sentence I could be proud of and wouldn’t mind other people reading! I knitted a row without stabbing myself with the needle and bleeding to death!) but that one thing I screw up makes me feel like the amazing things don’t count. The scale isn’t affected by the airy happy things I place on the success side, and then it cracks in half with the weight of that awkwardly worded email I sent in which I accidentally hurt someone’s feelings.

So hey. Let’s do things differently this year.

Throw away the scale.

Let’s NOT tally up our successes and failures. Failure will win because it’s big and loud and hulk-smashy. Success (with its fairy wings and gossamer breath) will get pummeled and then go hide in the bathroom to cry.

Screw that.

If you just have to make a year-end tally, write down what you’re proud of this year. Things like:
•    At your day job, you didn’t smack a single person.
•    Your blueberry muffins disappear from the kitchen within seconds.
•    You made someone laugh until they cried.
•    Your socks matched more days than they didn’t.
•    You started that novel, and now you have more words written than you did last year.

If your fingers get itchy to list the failures, DON’T. Break the pencil and marvel at your own strength. You already spent enough time on what didn’t go well—I know you did. From enormous impossible things like not saying the right thing before a loved one died to tiny silly things like only remembering to put eyeliner on one eye: You have spent enough time hurting.

Forgive yourself like you would forgive the person you love most. Don’t spend time “learning” from it — you did that already without even having to try. Be kind to yourself. In three weeks let’s turn the calendar page without fanfare. Last January we thought we had a whole year to finally get things right, but come on. What a burden to place on a brand new year. What was really true was that we noticed where we were in time. We can do that any old day. Let’s do that today, December 10th. Or September 17th. Or February 3rd.

Every day is a good day to notice where you are, right now.

Celebrate your successes because they are daily and many and they are spectacular.

RACHAEL HERRON is the bestselling author of the novel Splinters of Light and Pack Up the Moon (both from Penguin), the five-book Cypress Hollow series, and the memoir, A Life in Stitches. She received her MFA in writing from Mills College, and when she’s not busy writing, she’s working her other full-time job as a 911 fire/medical dispatcher for a Bay Area fire department. She’s a New Zealand citizen as well as an American, and she is a proud member of the NaNoWriMo Writers Board. She can probably play along with you on the ukulele.

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