Do you really need 10 steps to revise your novel? Can’t you do it in three? Or is the true number 127? I have written 74,083 words of my book and the last two words were THE END so you’d think I’d know what I’m talking about. I don’t.

Here’s where I am so far, and I hope something I’m about to type will be of use.

1) I took the 5,000-word critique my editor wrote and the feedback from my wife and a trusted friend and combined them in one file. I don’t agree with everything they said, but most of it was worth considering and some of it was eye-opening.

2) I organized that file into something I could read. Blocks of text like Roman columns would be impenetrable. 500 bullet points would give everything equal weight, like potato chips.

Fortunately, Word has all the tools I need: Paragraphs, indents, boldface, borders, italics, underlining, and symbols for geometric shapes, musical notes, and my favorite, harpoons. Warning: Don’t make a craft project out of this. The idea is to create a hierarchy, not a hairstyle.

3) I sat and thought. I walked and thought. I napped and thought. This is also called procrastination.

4) Since the only way to tackle a large project is to take it one step (or bird) at a time, I’ve chosen characters as my first step. The consensus seems to be that I have too many, approximately enough to reenact the Battle of Hastings. This was never a problem for Dickens, and when I read Balzac last year I was impressed that he was still inventing characters in the final pages, but it seems that my skills are pitched a bit lower than those boys. For me, less is more…attainable.

My immediate goal is to figure out what each character is doing in my story, or what they think they’re doing. They may have wandered into my book from someone else’s. I will evict some. I will combine others by running them through the transporter during an ion storm.

My long-term goals are to finish revising this first book and begin writing my second book while staying hungry and keeping it real. Live my best life; fuck some shit up. More next time.