I'm working on revisions (the self-imposed kind for now) of a WIP that at this point needs a lot of them. I have my list of revision notes laid out in an order that makes sense to me, largest points to smallest points (because why fine-tune the dialogue tags in a scene that might get rewritten?). And I'm close enough to the top of the list that much of the work involves reconsidering big questions about the characters and their world, and the structure and timeline of the story. There will be a point later when revisions can be done in fifteen-minute chunks if I so choose, but this is not that point. Now, I need longer periods of quiet, focused time when I'm feeling energetic and ready to think. But that's not the weird part.
It's also not that weird that in between one revision point (say, figure out some reasons two friends are so loyal and find ways to indicate these reasons) and another (add or subtract days from the plot so Monday follows Sunday), I feel the need to clear my head. To do something less thoughtful for a couple of minutes--hey, look, the device I'm writing on just happens to contain the Internet! What
is a little weird, in a brains-are-mysterious-and-cool sort of way, is that in these moments, I crave music. Not continuous music while I'm working, just two minutes of music while I'm not. It helps remove the muddled feeling from my mind much more efficiently than a musicless break might. Occasionally, it even reminds of a theme song at the end of a TV show. The Fix-This-Character Show is over! Time for the Fix-This-Timeline Show!
Maybe it's a way of subconsciously telling myself, "Someone else managed a creative feat. So can you."
Anyone else have quirky revision rituals?
