I cant help but laugh a bit at the fact that I am in the first full revision of my novel at the same time my actual vision is being revised. Since the surgery last week I’ve gone through thinking I’d wake up to clear sight to thinking I’d lose sight in one eye. Now, thankfully, in the midst of that eye healing I feel like I am living in the perpetual tip and sway of a life at sea. One where the view of the horizon is forever changing, sometimes clear, sometime lost in mist or clouds, sometimes what is far looks near and what is close blurs. I am not sure how much is my brain processing what it sees and how much is my eye recuperating.
In the meantime back in the later 15th century of my story I am making slow progress. Back then if I was me I’d have been blind for years now. But I am here looking back; revisioning. I am half way through a first pass – making notations, changing order, noting what’s missing, or what is there that may need to go, where I still have questions about voice etc.
I am trying to be patient with myself in both realms of revision. Patient, but productive, for the sake of being engaged. Resting does not have to be passive. It’s finding the right movement, and the right stillness, so I can see the way forward clearly enough.