I’ve heard lots of writers say that writing is revision, and I know what they mean. Because this has been a week of huge insight about revision, I’ve decided to periodically write posts on the subject and devote a category to revision on this blog.

In the last week, the revisions have proven a challenge in ways I didn’t expect.

So far, I have learned two useful lessons.

First, never begin revisions at the beginning. Instead, pick a hot spot in the manuscript to begin the revision—a favorite chapter, or a section where few editorial questions have been posed. I tried beginning my revisions in chapter one and overwhelmed myself.

The first chapter represents my oldest writing. The chapter lacks the confidence and rounded nature of later ones. So, of course, it is a chapter with lots of prompts for enrichment and indications of where I need to deepen an observation. I also overwhelmed myself with the realization that these would be the reader’s first encounter with the story. I managed to stick myself on these two facts and felt completely stifled.

After a few days of struggle and panic, I finally gave myself permission to work out of order, and found a hot spot, the fifth chapter. When I took up that revision, all the pressure disappeared and I could focus on the work, the words, and the necessary changes. Then, feeling a bit more capable, I revised chapter four.

When I’d finished, I also gained a new insight: revision is mostly a matter of proportion.

My editor marked up my manuscript with lots of great questions. Those questions triggered all kinds of new tangents in my mind that felt both exciting and overwhelming. They felt exiting because I saw ways to deepen the story that hadn’t occurred to me before. They felt overwhelming because those new insights threatened to throw paragraph, sections, and entire chapters off balance.

So I am having to learn my second big lesson, the lesson of proportion.

I am learning to think of much of this revision as laser surgery, exact, precise.

I will also say that I am trying to take the pressure off myself by simply making lots of very specific passes over the manuscript, one page and one chapter at a time. I’ll respond to basic queries first—requests of additional information. In the next pass, I’ll consider word style choices that the editor flagged. I’ll keep taking passes over the same pages. Then, when I feel best equipped to do so, I’ll tackle the places the editor wants me to deepen emotionally or develop with the extension of an anecdote, etc.

But to get myself to the computer, I simply remind myself to follow the heat, avoid beginning at the beginning, keep proportion in mind, and take lots of passes.

It seems to be working at the moment.