I finished the first draft of my next novel! I wrote the last words about 2 weeks ago. It weighs in at 80,000 words or about 200 pages (yes, I am still counting). Yay!

Now that I’ve had a little celebratory break (which included an incredible trip to Blue Osa in Costa Rica), it is time for the next step: revision.

Yuck.

I tried to start yesterday, but failed. I was gripped by fear. I had no energy. There were other things to do, like look at my Costa Rica pictures again and refill my coffee cup.

But today, success! I started by picking up my favorite book on writing, The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop, by Stephen Koch. He inspires me every time.

One hitch is that I keep trying to remember how I revised my last book. Koch takes that question off the table simply:

Every writer must be taught how to write every book she writes, and the teacher is always the book itself.

Phew. I can’t go wrong! I just need to let the book show me the way.

Another hitch is that I don’t want to read my first draft. I know it has some good stuff. But I also know it has some dreadful stuff. And for the past two weeks I’ve been agonizing about all of the things I should have done and ideas I haven’t yet included that I want to weave in.

According to Koch, these ideas are precious and hard-won. I wouldn’t have them had I not written the first draft to being with.

“I love the flowers of afterthought,” says Bernard Malamud, author of The Natural. Flowers. What a lovely way to think about these thoughts.

Finally, Koch gives some very specific instruction on how to take the first step: Sit down and read the draft. All at once. Listen to your “twin friends, the senses of rightness and wrongness,” he says, and trust them. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong. Take note to cut or edit later. Don’t waste time or energy feeling embarrassed by the terrible parts. Look at your draft, he says, like a doctor reading an X-ray.

As I type, my pages are printing, 4 pages per sheet, one-sided by accident. But hey, the blank side will be useful for taking lots of notes about how great or terrible that page is!

All I have left is to decide what chair to sit in… Okay. Decided. Here I go.