March 5, 2018: Revision can be fun.

Can you believe we are already in the third month of the New Year? Time flies when you’re having fun…it flies whether fun is involved or not, actually. Long evenings of revision can sometimes be fun or it can be stressful. I’m forever looking for ways to relieve stress; otherwise, I go to bed with it and rise with it after very little sleep. When a particular word, phrase, or sentence eludes me during revision, I twist it and turn it a thousand different ways before I’m satisfied. Chamomile Tea is a favorite at 8pm, stretching after hours of revision helps, but until I get that darn wording correct, nothing will free my mind completely. 

Take for instance that sentence on which I learned to type, (boy, did I just date myself, or what?). The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. We could also say: Muddy in color, the fleeting, flying fox darted right and left before sailing over the snoring canine. The first sentence utilizes as many keys on a typewriter as possible. The second sentence tickles the tongue and paints rosy pictures. Both sentences say the same, but it’s not so much what you say in writing as how you say it.  Granted, without a strong plot, the story won’t hold interest; but even with a strong plot, if your reader isn’t drawn in, the story falls by the wayside.

Be honest, in the first sentence, what kind of picture did you see in your mind as you read it? I saw a brown fox jump over a sleeping dog. In the second sentence, I saw a brownish colored fox, darting hither and yon−possibly shielding himself from view behind a boulder or tree, before stretching out to his maximum length to sail over an unsuspecting dog, snoring away. Think Roadrunner and the poor fox that constantly fell victim to his own antics. No matter how that fox sneaked around, over and through, he never succeeded; but the viewer didn’t mind. The entertainment was part of the journey. 

Writing is a journey. Revision is your road map, or GPS to the millennials.