Reflections On Round One

I finished the first round of edits of my book and sent it back to the editor this weekend.  

It took me almost 6 weeks to do it because I had some significant changes to think about and work into the story. And what's funny about those changes is that in the end, those changes made the story more like my original idea.

I guess, after all, I went with my "gut instinct."

I drew from the well that was created a long time ago.

I wondered if I could have just left things the way they were.  I mean, I took a rather circuitous route to get back to the original, I guess.  But, then again, I picked up a lot of things along that "circuitous" route. 

This is how writing a book mirrors life as well, I think.  The first time I wrote the story that is now Scar of the Downers, it was years ago. I was in another place then, spiritually, mentally, and yes, even physically.  I can say with confidence that I'm not the same man I was back then, and that my writing is different now.

Things always seem to change, don't they?  Even though I'm writing similar plot points, it didn't come out of me the same way.  Also, I can tell how going another way with the story slightly altered these plot points, and I think made them better, more rounded.  Maybe it's like a stew... you let it simmer enough, the flavors meld, and the end product is vastly different than when you first threw everything in the pot.

There isn't much to this post except to say this:  We're never what we once were.  We keep growing, we keep changing, and life moves on with a rapidity that is unbelievable at times.  

But there are some things that stick, and some things that you know to be true, and whereas you may veer away from them for a while, you always come back to them in the end.  But when you come back, it's with more in your pocket, sort of.  It's like visiting somewhere you lived as a child, or meeting up with someone you haven't seen in years.  Only now, you're an adult, or you've gotten married, or something big has happened to you and so your feelings or your conversation is not exactly what you thought it would be.