A more important realization has unfolded over the last couple of months, something I've known for years but only with my head or my brain. Now I comprehend it with my heart, or my full consciousness. Something like that.
I realized that every time I revise a manuscript--or every time I've done so up until now--I've believed "this was it." It. The final draft. But as I've worked through this very special revision, which integrates the research from my week in the library, I am recognizing that there is more yet to do. Another revision probably won't be enough. I can glimpse Judith and her friends, her neighbors and enemies as they grow more fully into themselves and into their world.
They're just not there yet. How many manuscripts have I written now? A dozen at least, from children's book manuscripts, murder mysteries, the memoir and more. Yet I feel I'm only beginning to understand the old maxim, "Writing is revision." And revision is seeing again, more clearly.
It feels like I've outgrown (or at least broken through one layer) of the familiar writer's urge to be done. To have written instead of being inside the writing. I'm happy to be here.