Seattle 167, or Revisions and Rosh Hashanah

My brilliant editor and I have been doing some back-and-forth over my rewrites. It's largely been great, because I knew my first draft was really rough (I mean, come on, what first draft isn't?) and I was excited to have her rip it apart - I mean, gently nudge me in the right direction, so my second draft would be cohesive, exciting, and brilliant.

Last week, I sent her the first 25 pages of my rewrite. I was so excited. There were new poems! Old poems had been completely deleted! Timelines had been altered! Characters had been fleshed out! I was positive that she was going to send me a letter of utter kvelling, before maybe offering to fly me to Massachusetts so we could spend some time discussing the brilliance of my work over cappuccino, and then maybe she'd introduce me to her agent, who'd immediately send it to every major publisher to get the bidding war going.

And that's totally what happened. You believe me, right?

Here's some of the 15-page critique (for 25 pages of poems):

...it doesn't seem that this is a major rewrite. My previous questions are still unanswered...try to think about major rewrites of poems. Often a finished poem barely resembles the first, second, fifth, twelfth draft. See if you can dig deeper...

Well, if that doesn't just pop my balloons, Editor.

In all honesty, I'm not actually mad or all that frustrated - she's absolutely right, after all. It's old, well-worn advice, advice I've given many many times.

And now we're on break for the High Holidays (Editor herself being a fabulous Jew), and I won't send her anything until after next week. I've promised myself that I'm going to let go of the book for a few days, go to synagogue, visit the Kibbutz for dinner, blast shofar, and pray.

But this critique rings true for me in so many ways; I can't just let go of it.

Every Rosh Hashanah, which, let's face it, is not as much a holiday as it is a litany of the Things We Should Be Doing Better, I review every way in which I might've hurt people in the previous year. The list is long, and usually incomplete. In the last few years, I've started writing letters to some people on the list asking for their forgiveness. It's exhausting, to spend that much time with my worst self - to sift through the ugliest parts of me, figuring out what I can salvage, and what I really, really need to try and get rid of this year.

Sound like anything else I've been working on?

I'm really going to try to let my novel go, and instead focus on myself, instead of my novel-as-metaphor-for-self. I'll let you know how that goes.

In the meantime, Shana Tovah, a Gut Yor, and may you all have sweet, contemplative New Years!