Revision, vision, and all those damn trees

I am in revision mode. So much so, that I have already revised the opening two sentences of this piece twice. Three times. Four times!

It’s paralyzing.

I want to talk to you, because, well, it’s been a while and I’ve missed you. But I have tried for the better part of a month to tell you all the things I’m wondering about and I can’t do it. I begin. I edit. I delete.

Don’t get me wrong – I like revising. I’m getting better at it and the manuscript that I have been working on for the past month is shaping up. I think.

But the skills of revision are kinda the opposite of those needed for creation. Just when I’m feeling all “in the flow” after writing a first draft, I have to switch gears, and my writing brain is about as nimble as a sloth. I should spend a couple of years whipping off first drafts – of poems, novels, essays, short stories, songs, flash fiction – and then spend the rest of my life revising.

I wonder if that would work?

And there are real-world repercussions with being in revision mode in my work, best described as Can’t See the Forest for the Trees Syndrome. (CSTFFTT Syndrome) It’s a thing! Ask a writer.

Case in point:

Yesterday, there were no spaces left at the pool’s bike rack (and it’s a big one – good job Victoria!) so I decided to lock up to a light pole. It was quite a fat pole so I struggled a bit to pull the bike lock around it, then fiddled with the combination, concentrating on the wee numbers. As I squinted and muttered with my face smushed into the bike, I noticed a passer-by had stopped beside me. I looked up and she said, “You know someone could just lift the bike and lock right up over that.”

The light pole was about three feet high.

You know, now that I think about it, I see some evidence of CSTFFTT Syndrome going on in my life right now.

I’ve been pretty focused on wanting to be here in Victoria full time, not just dog and house-sitting. I dream of having a ‘room of one’s own’. But that narrow focus sometimes prevents me from the bigger picture. I already have a wonderful home and while I can’t afford to be in Victoria full-time, I AM here right now. I have the best of both worlds and while there are some inconveniences along the way, they’re nothing. Who cares which tree you live in, when the forest is so amazing?

Huh! Another free therapy session, thanks to you listening to me ramble. How do I know what I think until I see what I say? (E.M. Forster)

I’m going to post this immediately, before I’m tempted to revise it out of existence.